


The Silver Torc

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: First Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 07:39:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sentinel, told as a faery tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Silver Torc

## The Silver Torc

by Corbeau

Does anybody seriously think there's money in retelling a TV show like a cross between the Brothers Grimm and Lord of the Rings?

Inspired by Brighid's wonderful tales--I just had to try it for myself.

* * *

Once upon a time, in a green land of mists and mountains, there lived a merchant with a beautiful wife and two young sons. The merchant, one Ellis by name, was a good man but a dour one, who mistook gold for riches. He spent his days in buying and selling and his nights in his counting-house, working by the light of candles while he dreamed of the fine things his wealth would buy--gowns for his wife of silk and velvet, fine horses for his sons to ride. While he dreamed, his wife sat in their great stone house alone but for their sleeping sons and watched the sea. 

The merchant's firstborn son was James, and he had far-seeing eyes that were sometimes the color of snow-shadows in sunlight, and sometimes the color of a mountain lake under cloudy skies. He grew strong and fleet of foot, roaming the great forests of his homeland and climbing the slopes of its snow-crowned mountains. While his father counted his gold, and his mother watched the sea, young James learned the ways of beast and bird, and the rhythm of rain and wind, sun and cloud, snow and shadow. He thought little of the wide world beyond, for his own small world held all a boy could want, and he believed it would last forever--for he was but a child, and not yet wise. 

* * *

When seven years had passed in the life of the merchant's son, another child was born in a far land to the south. His mother wore no velvet gowns, nor did she live in a great stone house, for she was neither wealthy nor far from childhood herself. The old women of the village muttered when she passed them on the street, for she had no husband, and none knew who had fathered her child. When he was born, many in the village said that young Naomi must have yielded to some fairy lover from the hollow hills--for the child was of surpassing beauty, and quick to learn, and the village witch whispered now and again that an old soul sometimes looked out of his eyes. Those eyes were sometime the color of the sky in summer, and sometimes the color of the smoke of the fire as it rose to meet the evening sky. 

Over the years the whispers faded, for he grew into a small but sturdy child, and no pale and delicate fay. His wild hair was the color of chestnuts in autumn, and he was quick and clever as a fox, and friendly as the pups of the village's hunting dogs. His smile could capture the heart of the most disapproving beldame, and his kindness soon caused the villagers to forget that his feckless mother had no husband, and that none knew the name of his father. They grew to depend upon young Jacob's way with tools as he helped the sawyer's widow thatch her roof; or on his strong clever fingers as they plied the harp-strings at the harvest festival; or on his bardish voice as he told the old tales around the fire at night--tales of far places and mighty Wizards and great heroes doing perilous deeds. They thought little of the wide world beyond, and believed life would be the same forever--for they were a small village of simple folk and not wise. 

One day when Jacob was ten summers old, a Romany caravan came into the village, as it did every year, but this time Naomi was sore troubled. She was a wanderer at heart, and chafed at the unchanging life of the village. Like a woman dying of thirst, she drank in tales of far lands and the wonders to be seen there, and the magic to be learned there. For she had learned all she could from the village witch, and yearned to seek for more knowledge out in the wide world. Though ten years a mother she was still young and comely, and many a traveling tinker or wandering Wizard had tied his horse to her door-post all the night. A handsome Rom with a strong arm and ready tongue was much taken with this flame-haired creature who bloomed like a wild lily in a field of barley. When the caravan left the village this time, Naomi and her son went with it. Young Jacob loved the people of the village, but he loved his mother more, and his hunger for knowledge was greater even than hers. He watched the village until it disappeared beyond the trees, then turned his face to the road ahead. 

* * *

When eleven winters had passed in the life of young James, he learned the first of many lessons on the hard road to wisdom. On a bright morning when the great tall-masted ships left the harbor to trust their fortunes to the kinder winds of spring, he woke to find that his mother was no longer sitting at her window in the stone house watching the sea. The silk and velvet gowns were gone from her wardrobe, and her jewel-case from its hiding-place, and none but he could still smell the last traces of her perfume as it lingered in the air. 

His father's face was like a winter storm on the mountain, but James would not believe that his mother had left them. He rode his fine horse down to the harbor, his calls for his mother mingling with cries of the sea-birds as they rode the spring winds over the glittering water. But no answering call came that day or any day thereafter, and as spring blossomed into summer the boy came to believe his father, and knew that his mother had left her lonely chamber in the great stone house and gone far from her husband and sons, over the wide sea. 

He had always been a quiet and serious child, more at home in the forest than the town, happier learning sword-craft from the soldiers of the King's garrison than the ways of the merchant from his father. As he grew into manhood James seldom smiled, though when he did it was like a sudden shaft of sunlight through the rain. He grew tall, lean from his wanderings in the forests and the mountains, strong from hours with pike and staff and sword. He and Stefan his brother would ride their fine horses far and wide over the land, and he taught the younger boy all he knew of woodcraft, and hunting, and fighting, and the ways of beasts. 

Stefan was as happy to ride their father's fine horses as his much-loved brother, but preferred the counting-house to the forest, for he was more eager than James to please their father. He was, after all, but a child, and greatly feared to wake one spring morning to find that his father too had left his sons behind and taken a great ship over the wide sea. 

James loved his father, and wanted greatly to please him, but the life of a merchant seemed to him a poor thing bereft of spirit; one that would impoverish a man's soul and blind the knowing of his heart until the mother of his sons might seek a kinder place than a great stone house in which to dwell. But James was more skilled with deeds than words, and kept these things locked in his heart, and his father was wroth that his firstborn cared so little for the getting of wealth. 

James was no ordinary boy. He was the greatest hunter in the land, though not yet a man. His arrows could bring down birds others could not even see; his ears could hear the breathing of the coney hidden in the shadows; his touch upon the ground could tell how many deer had passed how long ago; he could smell the scent of the wild boar sooner than the finest of the hunting dogs. The larders of the house of Ellis were always full in the harshest winter, and the poorest of the town never lacked for meat, for whenever James was with them the hunters always brought back more than they could use. 

When James had nearly entered into manhood, the other merchants of the town began to speak against him, muttering about evil sorcery, or consorting with demons. They believed his powers must come from magic, and they were distrustful of magic, for all that their land was renowned far and wide for its own great school of Wizardry. For all true Wizards know that the most powerful magic is that given freely with a pure heart, and the merchants trusted nothing given freely, nor knowledge sought for its own sake and not for gain. Their hearts were blind to the spirits that dwelled in forest and mountain, fire and water, earth and air. They only trusted what could be bought for gold, and feared anyone with powers beyond the ordinary, lest those powers be turned against them to rob them of their riches. 

Though others might see such powers in the firstborn son of Ellis as a great gift, the merchant saw it as a curse, for he cared more for the opinion of his fellows than for an overflowing larder. And though his heart had hardened and his visage grown ever more dour since his beautiful wife had sailed away over the wide sea, he did love his son after his fashion. And he feared for him, because he feared these strange powers of his son's, knowing not whence they came. He trusted not in the good will of other men, and thought they might someday seek to harm young James, or banish him forever from the land of mists and mountains. 

One day as the winter storms blew in from the sea, James was summoned to his father's chamber. He stood before his father with his hair the color of rich earth and his eyes the color of the stormy sea, and wondered what fault Ellis might find in him that day, for it seemed to him those were the only times his father wished to see him of late. 

"My son," said the merchant, "I have purchased a charm for you with much gold, to protect you from the ill will of the world." 

And James wondered at this, for he did not then view the world as his father did, and paid little heed to the whispers of the merchants. But he held his tongue, knowing his father valued gifts bought with gold more than words of praise or of love, and was loth to turn down any gift from his father's hand. 

Ellis took down a wooden box, cunningly carved, from a high shelf. He opened it and took out a silver torc, with a small jewel at its center, clear and cold as the ice that covered the shallow forest ponds on winter nights. It was carved all around with the straight hard lines of runes, runes of power and ward, in an old language neither man nor boy knew well. Lifting his arms (for James was already taller than his father) the merchant clasped the torc around the neck of his firstborn son. 

The silver burned the boy's neck like a sword blade left all night in the snow, but nothing of his surprise or pain showed on the face of the young hunter. The light in his bright face darkened as if the thinnest of veils covered it, and he felt at once that an invisible coat of mail covered him. He had seen the coats of metal rings worn by the great knights of the realm who sometimes passed through town, riding to the harbor on their war-horses. He could see no such armor upon his body, and his limbs moved freely as they ever did, but he felt a great weight that had not been there before. Nonetheless he tried to smile and thank his father, for he knew the merchant still believed that safety and comfort could be bought with gold (though it had not done so for the mother of his sons). 

"Now," said Ellis, "your heart is protected from the ills of the world, and the envy of others, for this magic is strong, the most powerful that gold can buy. It was made by a great Mage from the School of Wizards in the King's city of Riverfall. And this scroll tells of its potency, for it is written in the mage's own hand, and says that only the greatest magic in the world can overcome the torc's power. And no merchant's son from the land of mists and mountains will ever meet a great Mage who could work such powerful magic." 

Later that night, as the rain beat against the windows of his high chamber in the stone house by the sea, James tried to take the torc from his neck and could not. His heart misgave him then, for he remembered the tales told by the kitchen fire of an evening, told by a kindly cook to two motherless boys whose father labored well into the night. Had Ellis not scorned such tales he might not have given his son such a thing of power, with runes in old language he did not know well. For words carry powerful magic, and the old tales were filled with feckless boys or arrogant kings who came to grief from carelessly worded wishes, or by not paying heed to the meanings behind meanings of words spoken by clever Wizards, or by fairies in disguise. So James lifted his hand from the silver torc and sighed, for the deed was done, and whether well done or ill only time would tell. He could only hope that the world held a kinder fate for him than to be strangled by a silver torc with a jewel like ice and hard carven runes all around. 

And so it seemed, for as James grew to manhood the torc grew with him. And it did protect him from those who spoke against him, but not in any way his father had foreseen (which is often the way of powerful charms made by Wizards). For the invisible armor that none could see from without seemed to place a veil between James and the world. He was still a good hunter, but no better than the best of other men. No longer could his eyes see what no others could see; no longer could his ears hear before others could hear. Now the hunting dogs scented the boar when James could smell naught but the forest around him. And James mourned the loss of his powers but little, though the larders of the house of Ellis were less full when snow fell than they once had been, and the poor of the village often had to make do with turnip stew and wizened apples in the dead of winter. 

Although the torc, in its strange fashion, protected him from the mutterings of the merchants, it was at first no bulwark against the scorn of his father. James grew into a tall man, with the strength of a smith in his arms and the carriage of a warrior in his stride, and he would rather read books of war-craft in the garrison than ledgers in his father's counting-house. He spent more time practicing with sword and staff than going with his father to the harbor to watch over the loading and unloading of goods. 

Now Ellis thought to bind his sons to him by favoring first one, then the other; and no mark of favor was given to one that was not taken from the other. James little liked this way of doing, and the older he grew the more he came to view the life of the merchant as no life for him, despite the vexation of his father. 

Stefan, though not his firstborn, was more his father's child. Though he still looked at his older brother with eyes of wonder, and a look upon his face such as he wore when listening to tales of the heroes of old, he came to believe the life a merchant was well suited to his talents. He still rode through the forests and over the hills with his brother, for he loved the power of a fine swift horse under him, but he grudged not time spent in the counting-house with his father, or watching the movement of goods on and off the great ships. So Stefan was, more often than not, the son in favor with his father, and James the son who felt his scorn. Over the years it seemed that the armor around his heart that stood between him and the ill will of others began to protect him against his father as well. James hardened his heart against the merchant, and wished his younger brother well, and began to sit where his mother used to sit, watching the sea. 

On the day James came into manhood, Stefan did some small thing to vex his father. Ellis told his younger son that he must stay in the stone house the next day, and that James would go with his father instead to the great fair held at Riverfall but once every quarter-day. Stefan was greatly angered, and James argued with their father to no avail, since he cared but little for a trading fair and Stefan had talked of nothing else for many days. But Ellis would not be moved. In his anger, Stefan took the great stallion that he was forbidden to ride, his father's favorite horse, and rode him long and hard through valley and forest and even up the flanks of the mountains. He came home after the sun had set, leading the horse, now lame with hard riding. James did not chide his brother, though he hated to see an animal ill-used, but helped him water the great horse and brush the sweat and dust from his fine coat, and used what he knew of healing herbs to ease the beast's suffering as best he could. 

The sun had barely risen over the mountains to the east when Ellis discovered the daMage done to his fine stallion. Little thinking that a boy of Stefan's age would dare to ride such a great horse, he brought James before him and taxed him with the deed. James stood silent before his father, awaiting his brother's words, words that would take the blame upon himself. But none came, for Stefan was too afraid of his father's wrath, and too desirous of his favor, to admit his fault. As James waited for the words that never came, he felt the invisible armor he carried grow heavier still, for his heart was sore hurt at the betrayal of his only brother. The torc worked its magic upon him, and his heart hardened against Stefan, but still he said no word as his father sought to wound him with words of anger. 

So as his father and his brother set out upon the road to the great fair at Riverfall, James put on the shirt that Sallis the cook had given him on his last naming-day, and the deerskin breeches made from the hide of a fine stag he had brought down with a single arrow, and sturdy boots made from the hide of the wild boar he had killed with a spear. 

He girded on the sword that had belonged to his mother's father, and a plain but serviceable knife a soldier's widow had given him in gratitude for the meat he brought her every winter. And he set out on foot, leaving the fine horses in their stable, and the new dagger his brother had given him on the day he came of age. For he would take nothing of his brother's, and nothing of his father's, save for the silver torc around his neck with its ice-clear jewel. 

Thus on a fine spring morning he walked down into the town, and into the garrison, and told his friends the soldiers he wanted to become one of them. For he was now a man, and it was his right to choose his own road. So he took ship in the harbor, and sailed down the coast, and came to the King's great city of Riverfall in his own way. But he never came to the merchant's quarter, or the great fair. Instead he came to the King's garrison, and gave them his letter, painstakingly written by the Captain of the garrison at home. And they opened the great iron-clad wooden door, and he entered in, to become a warrior in the army of the King. 

* * *

A year and a day after Naomi had taken her young son and left the village of her birth, her Romany lover came to her with downcast eyes. The Romany care little for those not of their own blood, and for good cause--for the folk they wandered among often hounded them and blamed them for any ill that visited their villages. They were loth to see a strong young man of their people bewitched by one not of their blood, when he should be wed to one of his own. 

The young Rom loved Naomi, and was kind to her quicksilver child, but the time had come when he could bear the weight of his people's scorn no longer. So he bid Naomi farewell, and bade her take the wagon he had made for her. When the caravan came to a fork in the road, the Romany went south and Naomi's wagon turned north, and the young Rom watched the wagon disappear into the trees with sadness in his dark eyes. 

For five years Naomi and Jacob wandered, from one end of the realm to another, and over the borders to other realms. Some said they traveled to even stranger lands, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, from which lands few mortal travelers return, and those that do are changed. But young Jacob laughed to hear such tales, for he met none but other mortals in their travels, though they came from distant kingdoms and had strange ways of speaking, and looked different from the people of his mother's village, and their ways were not like those he had known. Both Jacob and Naomi his mother drank in travelers' tales like others quaffed ale, and were always thirsty for more. 

As young Jacob grew to manhood he found he had the gift of tongues. He had long ago learned to read and write the tongue of his mother's people, and he was quick to learn those of the many lands through which they passed. He could shape words like a smith shapes iron; he could weave a tale like a tapestry. He was welcome wherever they passed, for he told the old tales as well as any bard, and his travels had given him a rich hoard to draw from. Nor were words all he could shape, for he was clever with his hands. Naomi was as comely as ever, and they seldom traveled alone. From a young journeyman smith Jacob learned to shoe a horse and fix a wagon wheel or a broken tool. After his mother's summer-long dalliance with a carpenter, young Jacob could fix their wagon or build a new one if he chose. One long winter Naomi found work as a tavern wench, and when they left in the spring Jacob had learned brewing and baking, cooking and cards, the playing of darts and the darning of shirts. 

The sweetest knowledge, though, was that gleaned from the village wise women, or the hedge-witches, or the itinerant Wizards that often crossed their path. Naomi learned love-charms and spells of healing and dabbled in scrying and illusion and divination, nibbling at the edges of the great magicks taught by the Wizards and mages in their schools of sorcery. But Naomi was no Wizard born, for her mind would fly from one thing to another like a bee from flower to flower. Not for her the long nights of study through dusty scrolls and the long days learning the intricate spells of powerful Magick. She was content to dabble in herb-lore and charms, healing a sickness here and there, making a charm or two for a lovesick youth. Jacob was like his mother in his hunger to see strange lands and learn new things, but was less content than she to dabble at the edges of things. As he grew older, he came to believe there was a True Magic, a great knowledge at the heart of the world, and he hungered to know it. More than one Wizard he had known said he had the gift, for others could still see the old soul looking out of his eyes, although he could not. 

One night, six years after he left the village in which he had been born, Jacob had a dream. His mother Naomi was driving their wagon, and he was walking beside. They came to a crossroads and Naomi turned the wagon south, for they both craved the sun and warmth of southern lands. Suddenly Jacob thought he spied something moving in the trees along the northern road, something just at the edge of sight. It moved silently in the shadows, and he could not tell if it were man or beast or some creature of Faerie. But he felt drawn to it, and could no more turn away from that road than the lodestone can turn from True North, so he ran into the trees following. 

He ran for days stopping for neither food nor drink (for such things are possible in dreams). He ran until he found himself in a strange green land of mists and mountains, where the rivers ran clear and cold into the great sea, and the forests held a deep, dark stillness in their green hearts unlike any he had ever known. He could no longer see the wraith he followed, but knew as he knew his own name that in this place between the mountains and the sea he would find True Magic. 

When he woke, Jacob went to Naomi his mother with tears in his eyes but a great longing in his heart, and told her of his dream. Then tears were in her eyes also, for she believed in the truth of such dreams, and knew that her beloved son must leave her now to make his own way in the world. He was young, but wise beyond his years, and clever, and skilled in the crafts a man might need to keep body and soul together. So she helped him fill his pack with his sturdiest clothes for traveling, and tools, and food, and all the coin she could spare. 

And so on a fine spring morning young Jacob put on his sturdiest boots and hoisted his pack to his back, and took his walking stick with the head of a wolf that he had carved with his own hands. Then he kissed his mother, and set upon the road to the north. And Naomi watched him go until she could see him no more, and dried her tears. She climbed into the wagon and turned it to the south, for she remembered that in the first village along that road lived a very handsome young baker who had given her extra loaves when they had stopped to trade for food. Perhaps he could help ease a grieving mother's heart. 

* * *

Now the King whose palace was in Riverfall owed fealty to the High King in his great castle on the shore of the Eastern Sea. Though there were no great wars now as there had been in the past, there were many small ones in lands both near and far, for such is the way of men. Young James slipped as easily into the life of a warrior as a sword into its sheath. He was tall and strong and well-taught by his friends in the garrison at Riverfall. He was loyal to his King, and valued loyalty above all in others. What little he did not already know of warrior's craft he learned quickly, and the officers of the King's Army soon marked him as a warrior born. 

He too saw much of the world, for the King's wars took his soldiers to many strange lands. While his comrades might scoff at the customs of those different from themselves, James kept silent, and listened, and watched. Not all his meetings with foreign folk were at the point of a sword, for he was well-spoken, and quicker to learn new tongues than many of his fellows. And he was comely, with his warrior's body and his eyes like the shadows on snow in sunlight. Not all the women he met in far kingdoms knew or cared if he spoke their tongue, for their interest was not in conversation. James was a boy no longer, but a man full grown, and came to know that not all a soldier's pleasures come on the field of battle. Still, he was more often to be found in the garrison, polishing his sword, or reading a tale of great heroes or a treatise on the arts of war. 

James had not been many years in the King's service before the Captains came to see he was no ordinary soldier, but a true warrior and a leader of men. He ranged far and wide in the service of his King, sometimes rallying his men on the field of battle, sometimes stealing into the enemy's stronghold through a forgotten breach, sometimes coming as death in the night to the King's enemies. No one ever heard him talk of the stone house by the sea in the land of mists and mountains, and if he ever thought of the far land of his birth, none could tell. 

One day, orders came from the King that James was to travel with his men by ship to a far land, where the King's allies were under siege by rebels. James was troubled at this, for though he had spent many years traveling over lands to the south and east, and stood upon the deck of more than one ship as it hugged the coast, he cared little for those that ventured over the wide sea. The waters were vast, and peopled with monsters, and the little shells of wood and canvas and pitch that ventured upon them seemed fragile indeed beside such might. The armor that protected his heart against the ill will of others had become such a heavy burden that he feared it would surely drag him into the depths as swiftly as a great metal anchor wrenched loose from its moorings. Too many that ventured over the great sea were never seen upon the earth again. 

But James was a soldier, and a Captain of men, and loyal to his King. So he locked these fears in his heart, and led his men up onto the great ship, and on a fine bright morning it unfurled its vast sails and set forth upon the wind to a far land over the wide sea. For many days and nights it sped before the wind while James listened to his men boast of the battles they would fight for the honor of their King, and the glory they would gain. It seemed his fears were for naught, for the sailors laughed joyfully at the speed and ease of their crossing, and said they would be within sight of land by the morning. 

But in the hours before dawn a great storm came upon them from the west, bringing a howling wind before it. The rain swept down in torrents to the sea, and the sea rose in great waves to meet it, and the ship was crushed between, and all the men that it carried were swept into the unforgiving waters. The men that did not die at once struck out for shore, and tried valiantly to wrest the bodies and souls of their fellows from the cold embrace of the deeps. But when the sun finally rose upon the shore of that far land, only James and two of his men were to be seen upon it. The first of them died before the sun reached its height, and the second before another dawn. James comforted each man as he died, as best he could, and carried each body above the reach of the tide, and built over it a cairn of stones. 

His heart almost misgave him then, for he loved his brothers in arms as much as his imprisoned heart allowed, and he prized the love of one warrior for another as a great and noble thing, such as the old tales tell. As he laid the last stone upon the second cairn he spoke what blessings he knew, to speed the souls of his fellows upon their journey to the Land Beyond Death. And he gazed over the treacherous sea that had taken the rest of his men, and the laughing sailors, and said blessings for them as well. Then he laid his head upon the stones, and sank into despair, for he was alone in a far land, with all the wide sea between him and the mists and mountains of his home. 

* * *

Jacob's heart lightened as he walked along the northern road, for he was young and strong and setting out upon his own path at last. For many days he traveled, walking when he must, or resting his weary feet in a farm cart or tinker's wagon when now and again a fellow wanderer offered such kindness. He drank from forest streams or village wells. When his store of food grew low he would catch fish, or trap a coney, or pick the wild berries that grew by the side of the road. He slept in the forest among the trees, or found a farmhouse or an inn that would give him food and a bed in exchange for a day's work in field or barn or smithy or kitchen. Many a heart along the northern road was comforted by his sweet voice telling tales by the fire at night, or by the sound of his penny-whistle in the common room of the local inn, or the clever toys he made for the village children out of scraps of wood and bits of string. There are some kinds of magic no school of Wizards can teach, and young Jacob had already been greatly gifted with a generous spirit and a kind heart. 

One fine summer day, Jacob was following a winding path into the woods, looking for a spring to fill his waterskin, when he found the way blocked by a great gray wolf with eyes the color of the smoke of the fire as it rises to meet the evening sky. He stopped and stared at the wolf, moving neither back nor forward. He was a brave young man but not a foolish one, and one thing he knew was that things are not always what they seem. 

"Good day to you, Wolf," he addressed it (for it was always safest to be polite in such situations). "Who might you be, and what brings a fine creature such as yourself so close to the road and the haunts of men?" 

"I am your brother," said the wolf, "and in need of your kindness." 

He raised his right paw, and Jacob could see that it bled from a large thorn deeply embedded in the pad. Now Jacob was brave and not foolish, but he knew the old tales as well as anyone, and knew that a talking wolf with a thorn in its paw could be a test of virtue--or it could be a talking wolf bent on making a meal of a foolhardy young man. 

Young Jacob had a clever mind as well as a kind heart, so he said, "Wolf, I will take the thorn from your paw, and bind your wounds, if you will hold my walking stick for me. For I carved it with my own hands, and it is precious to me." 

The wolf nodded his great gray head, and seemed almost to smile. "I would do so gladly if I could, my brother. But how can I hold your staff without hands?" 

Jacob appeared to ponder this for a long moment, then smiled brightly. "Why, you could easily hold it in your jaws, brother Wolf." 

"So I could," replied the wolf. "Come." 

And he opened his great jaws wide, and Jacob gingerly placed his wooden staff in the wolf's mouth. He then set to work, drawing the thorn from the wolf's paw, and bathing the wound with clear water, and soothing the pain with a salve of herbs his mother had put in his pack. He ripped the bottom edge off his second-best shirt to wrap the paw, for he had nothing else. Then he stepped back slowly and regarded the wolf expectantly. 

The wolf bent his head and placed the walking stick gently upon the ground. "You have done well, my brother. For your kindness I give you three gifts. First, I tell you that you are on the right road, for in the land of mists and mountains lies your heart's desire. Second, I give you leave to call upon me in times of great need, and I will succor you. And third--" The wolf gave a great shake of his head and something small and bright rolled onto the ground. "I give you this token of our bond." 

When Jacob raised his eyes from the bright thing, the wolf was gone, as if he had disappeared like mist into the trees. Jacob bent on one knee to pick up a silver ring in the likeness of a wolf's head. He hesitated only a moment, then placed it on the smallest finger of his right hand. Though the great Wizards sometimes scoffed at such notions, he believed as the wise women of the villages did--that all you do, for good or ill, comes back to you threefold. So he was grateful for the wolf's gift, and smiled as he filled his waterskin and found his way back to the road. 

As Jacob wandered ever northward, the land became greener and colder, and great trees with trunks like mighty pillars stretched far into the sky. He found himself more often than not deep in the great green forest, for the roads were narrower, the villages fewer, and he usually had to hunt or fish for his sustenance. He found himself weary and hungry one evening, as the dying light fell slantwise among the green boughs. He little liked the thought of another night without supper, but the forest seemed strangely quiet, bereft of the sounds of small game creeping quietly about the soft forest floor. Hearing the faint sound of a stream, and hoping for a fish or two, Jacob began to make his way down the steep bank. 

Suddenly the ground gave way beneath him, and he fell, sliding and rolling through thick fern and pine needles. When he finally stopped he lay breathless for a moment, then raised his head to shake the leaves and dirt from his long hair. 

Opening his eyes, he froze as still as a frightened coney before a hunting dog. Before his face, closer than the length of an arm, lay a great cat with fur the shining black of a raven's wing, and eyes as blue as a Summer sky (for Jacob had never seen the color of shadows when the sun shines upon the snow). He had seen great cats like this in the mountains and forests of the south, but they were tawny gold, and smaller, and he had never been close enough to see the color of their eyes. 

At first Jacob could not find his voice, but then he screwed up his courage and spoke in a voice that trembled only a little. "Good day to you, Cat. Who might you be, and from whence come you--for I have never seen your like in all the wide world." 

"There are few like me," the great cat replied. His voice rumbled through Jacob's bones. "But know that you are my heart's desire, and I am in need of your kindness." 

Then Jacob saw that the beast's great paw was caught in a cruel trap, with iron teeth that dug into flesh and bone, streaking the black fur with red blood. Now Jacob was brave but not foolish, but he had no stick for the cat's jaws, for his staff lay halfway up the riverbank, caught in a bush. He looked warily at the cat's open mouth, lolling tongue, and great white teeth like knives. Then he looked at the blue eyes, clouded with pain, and his heart ached for the poor beast. So he touched the silver ring in the likeness of a wolf's head, and took a deep breath (hoping it would not be his last), and reached for the trap. 

Now Jacob was young, not yet come of age, and smaller than most other boys of his age. But he had worked hard all his life, and was strong for his size. And greater even than the strength of his arms was the strength of his heart, although he little knew how great. So he gripped the cruel iron teeth in his hands and pulled with all his might, and pulled with all his strength, and pulled until the sweat broke out upon his brow--but he could not open the trap. 

"I am sorry, Cat," he said sadly. "I have not the strength to do this thing." 

"But you do," rumbled the voice of the great beast. He bent his head to lick the wolf's--head ring on the boy's hand. "You must try again, for only you can free me." 

Jacob's hand tingled where the cat's tongue had touched his skin. Taking a deep breath, he gripped the cruel iron teeth in his hands and pulled with all his might, and pulled with all his strength, and pulled until the sweat broke out upon his brow and the forest became a green blur around him--but he could not open the trap. 

"I am sorry, Cat," he sobbed. "Try as I might, I have not the strength to do this thing. Let me find another to help you." 

The cat stared a long time into Jacob's eyes, then his head lifted to lick the side of the boy's face. "You must try again, for only you can free me. If you fail, I will die." And he laid his great head in Jacob's lap and closed his eyes. 

Jacob gasped at the pain in the beast's voice, and tears ran unchecked down his face. His face felt like fire where the cat's tongue had touched him, a fire that seemed to run along all the paths of his body into his very flesh. He knew that he could not allow this beautiful great beast to die, so he reached once again for the trap. He gripped the cruel iron teeth in his hands, and pulled with all his might, and pulled with all his strength, and pulled until the sweat broke out upon his brow and the forest became a green blur around him and the blood from his own hands mixed with that of the cat on the black fur. He pulled until he thought he could pull no more; he pulled until he thought his heart would burst--and suddenly the jaws of the trap sprang apart with a horrible screeching cry like a soul in torment. 

Then he bathed the cat's paw with cold water, and put the healing salve on its wounds. He ripped the bottom edge off his best shirt to bind the paw, then tended to his own bleeding hands. Only when he finished did he dare to look again into the cat's eyes. 

The cat lifted his head from the boy's lap and purred, a great rumbling sound like a caravan of wagons on a not-too-distant road. "You have done well, my heart's desire. For your kindness I give you three gifts. First, I give you leave to call upon me in times of great need, and I will succor you. And second, I share my supper with you." Jacob followed the cat's gaze, and saw a little way off the carcass of a stag, freshly killed. Beside it were two great bushes filled with berries, red as blood on one, blue as a mountain lake on the other. 

Jacob dragged the body of the stag next to the cat, and cut a generous piece for himself. While the cat devoured the rest, Jacob built a fire, and put the meat to roast upon sticks. He picked berries in plenty, and even found wild onions growing, and herbs to season his meat. He ate until he was full to bursting, for he had not had such a good meal for many a day. Then he washed his hands in the stream, and banked the fire for the night, and prepared to sleep as best he could. For summer was waning, and the nights in this northern land were cold, and he had only a single thin cloak. Then he felt the great cat's paw touch his arm. 

"Come," said the beast in his rumbling voice. "You need not fear me." 

And Jacob wondered why this should be so, for anyone of sense should surely fear a great black cat with white teeth like knives. But he could find no fear in himself, only a strange longing, and thought how much warmer it would be to lie beside the warm body of the great cat, and rest his cheek against the raven's-wing fur. Perhaps this was the cat's third gift, and a welcome one it would be, for he had not been truly warm in this northern land for many a day. So he moved over to lie beside the beast, and spread his cloak over them both. 

The mist gathered on the forest floor, but that night Jacob was protected from its cold fingers. The warmth from the body of the great cat seemed to seep into his bones, his flesh, his heart. He could feel the beast's breath in his hair, and the beating of its great heart against his back. He slept, and dreamed of another green forest where it was always warm, and bright birds flew through the twining trees, and the roars of great cats could be heard throughout the night. 

When he woke the next morning, the cat was gone. In its place was a bracelet, like a rope of shiny black, and woven into it was a blue stone the color of a mountain lake under cloudy skies. And Jacob knew that this was the cat's third gift, and placed it on his left wrist. He stared at the stone a long time, and thought of the warm breath in his hair and the warm fur at his back, and wondered why a great cat with fur the color of a raven's wing, and eyes as blue as a summer sky, and white teeth like knives, would call a fatherless youth with only a thin cloak and two ripped shirts to his name his heart's desire. 

Jacob toiled on as the summer slowly died around him, and the air grew colder, and the leaves began to turn. He traveled through the forest when he could, for though the road still led north, it was no protection from the rain that was now his daily companion. In the shelter of the great trees the rain seemed less, and it took a little longer for water to seep through his thin cloak, and his traveling shirt, and chill him to the bone. He met few people on his journey, and saw only the smallest settlements, for most of the villages lay between the mountains and the great sea. Jacob knew that he soon must find a road west, or be lost in this great green forest through the cold winter. He found caves to sleep in when he could, but shivered through many nights without a fire, for it was hard to find dry wood. More than one night he thought he must surely die of the cold, until he touched the black bracelet, and remembered the warmth of the great cat surrounding him, and the warm breath in his hair, like a summer breeze through the leaves. 

One night there came a great storm in the mountains, with thunder booming fit to shake Jacob's bones apart, and great streaks of light splitting the sky. The rain was so relentless that it seemed as if the world had been turned upside down, and the great sea was now over his head instead of below. He feared that this would be his last night on earth if he did not find shelter, but finally he stumbled across a narrow, deep cave that led into the darkness of the mountain's heart. He was almost too weary to stand, and hungrier than he had ever been in his life, but knew that without a fire he might not last the night. 

So he staggered about the cave, and found bits of wood blown into its depths by the capricious winds of years, far enough from the cave's mouth to be dry. He pushed and pulled scattered stones into a circle, building them up to protect his fragile fire from the howling wind and pounding rain. When the fire blazed brightly, he took off his traveling shirt and breeches, and wrung them out as best he could, and laid them over the stones for the fire to dry. He did the same with his cloak and boots, and the clothes in his pack, for every garment he owned was wet through. He shivered in his nakedness, despite the fire, but his wet clothes would seep the warmth from his bones even faster. 

Jacob filled his traveling kettle with the last of his water, and added the last of his store of herbs from his mother. When the smaller stones nearest the fire grew hot, he used his knife and a piece of green wood to lift them from the fire and into the pot. Soon the water bubbled and boiled, and the narrow cave in that northern mountain was filled with the memory of summer in the southern lands of Jacob's birth. When the tea had cooled a little, Jacob dipped his small tin cup into the pot and drank the fragrant tea, and for a little while the night did not seem quite so cold, or the thunder so loud, or the rain so relentless. 

Tired as he was, he fought against sleep, for without the fire the cold would surely seep into his flesh and stop his young heart. But the warmth of the fire and the soothing tea weakened his resolve, until his eyes closed, and his head began to nod. He had almost surrendered himself to sleep, and from thence surely to death, when he heard a sound at his back. Nothing lay behind him but the darkness of the mountain's heart, and Jacob greatly feared what he might see when he turned around. But if he were to die this night, he would know the face of his doom, so he turned slowly around. 

A man stood before him, but a man garbed like no other he had ever seen in his many travels. He wore little but a breechclout and a cloak of red and black, with necklaces of stone and teeth and bone, and feathers of bright birds. His face and body were painted like his cloak, with black and red, and Jacob thought of the blood on the great cat's paw. He carried a spear, but his face was kind, and Jacob could not find it in his heart to fear the apparition. And apparition it seemed to be, for there was an unearthly light about the man, and he glowed in the dark depths of the cave. 

As if in a dream, Jacob stood to face the mage, for Mage he seemed to be for all his strange appearance. "Good day to you, Master. Who might you be, and from whence come you? For I have never seen your like in all the wide world." 

"I am a door," the Mage replied, "and your destiny lies beyond. Will you step through?" 

"If my destiny truly lies beyond," said Jacob, "then what choice have I?" 

"There is always a choice, my brother. It will be a hard road for you, harder than most. Better men than you have quailed at the journey." 

"If I choose not to step through this door," asked the boy, "what path shall my life take?" 

"It will be much like the path you imagined when you first set foot upon the northern road. But it will not be your destiny--and you will never find your heart's desire." 

Jacob looked into the dark eyes of the strange mage, and thought about the dreams he had when first he set out upon the northern road. He dreamed of becoming a Wizard, a great mage. He dreamed of the knowledge to be had in the great scrolls of the School of Wizards in Riverfall. He dreamed of seeking out his mother upon the road, and going with her to the village of his birth--fatherless son of a feckless mother, now a great Mage with black robes and a silver star upon his brow. 

Then he thought of the wolf that had called him brother, and the great cat that had called him his heart's desire. He had thought that knowledge was his heart's desire, and his destiny to be a black-robed Wizard, but now he wondered. His dream had been a fine thing, and his destiny might be a greater thing, or a lesser. But surely it would be foolish for a man to deny his destiny. And his heart's desire...knowledge still seemed to him a fine thing, and he still desired it greatly. But now he found himself longing for something else, something beyond knowledge, beyond fame, beyond the power to help and heal. He knew not what his heart's desire might be, but he wondered what manner of life a man might have who never found his heart's desire. 

Jacob stood resolute before the mage. "I will step through the door. I will take that road. I will find my destiny, and my heart's desire." 

The Mage nodded. "You will face pain upon that road, and many trials. This is the first. But you will not travel that road without gifts." He lifted his spear and touched Jacob's left ear. "You will find the knowledge you seek, and more than you dream of." 

Jacob gasped at the pain as the spear seemed to pierce his flesh. The Mage raised the spear once more, and touched it to the boy's ear again. "You will find many friends upon your road, to aid you and comfort you." The pain came again, greater this time, and Jacob felt a strange hot wetness upon his shoulder, and saw the red of blood pooling there. 

The Mage took the spear in his left hand and stretched out his right. He touched Jacob's breast with his finger, and Jacob cried out. His breast burned like fire where the mage's finger touched his flesh. He sank to his knees, the pain so great that the cave walls seemed to turn black and close in around him. Then he felt the mage's hand grasp his arm, leaving red streaks of blood like the strange paint upon his own body. 

"You will travel to the Land Beyond Death, but I shall guide the one who will bring you home." Jacob stared at the red streaks on his arm, like the blood on the wolf's paw, on the cat's fur. The blackness drew ever closer until it became a veil before his eyes and he knew no more. 

When he woke it was morning. The fire had died, and he was still naked, but the red-and-black cloak that covered him had kept him from freezing in the night. He looked down and saw that a silver ring pierced the flesh of his breast; he touched his ear in wonder and felt two more. The storm was over, and the sun sifted down through the trees outside, and this morning was a warmer one than he had known in a long time. He found a small stream where he could fill his waterskin and wash the blood away. His clothes were dry, so he put them on again, and hoisted up his pack, and set out to find the road. 

He not gone far to the north before he found the western road that led down to the sea. He set out upon it with a spring in his step despite his empty belly, for he knew that at the end lay both his destiny and his heart's desire. His road lay westward and downward for many days, until he stood at last upon a hill and saw the Western Sea stretched before him. Upon its shores lay the great city of Riverfall, in a green land of mists and mountains, where the rivers ran clear and cold into the great sea, and the forests on its borders held a deep, dark stillness in their green hearts. 

And young Jacob went down into the city, and asked the way of the people he met on its teeming streets, and came at last to the School of Wizards. He knocked upon the door of the outer courtyard with his staff. At first the doorward took him for a beggar, with his travel-worn boots and his strange red-and-black cloak and the pine needles in his wild hair. But Jacob held his ground, and said that he had come far to become a Wizard. So the doorward, knowing that things are not always what they seem, called one of the oldest mages, a white-haired woman with a straight back and pale gray eyes. And she looked into the face of the young boy with the ripped shirt and the silver earrings and the eyes the color of the sky in summer. She saw the old soul look out of them, and knew that here was a Wizard born. So they opened the great iron-clad wooden door to the inner keep, and young Jacob entered in, to seek his destiny and his heart's desire. 

* * *

James allowed himself little time to mourn, for he was a warrior born, and knew his duty. With a last touch against the stone cairn, he rose to his feet and gathered what little he could find of use. Some wreckage of the ship had drifted to the shore in the long day and night while he watched his men die, and built their crude tomb. He had lost his grandfather's sword, but still had the widow's sturdy knife. James tucked it into his belt with a heartfelt prayer of thanks to her and to the spirit of the humble soldier who once had carried it. He found a quiver of arrows but no bow, and some rope, and a tin cup. A stout wooden staff had ridden the waves to land, and he claimed that as well. But he had no food and no fresh water, so he turned his back on the sea and plunged into the green depths of the forest. 

It was like no forest he had known as a boy, for the trees were thick with vines that seemed to twine even as he watched, and bright flowers that seemed to grow in air. The birds that flitted through the green web were as bright as flowers themselves. The deeper he went into the trees, the more the forest teemed with life. James heard a strange sound above him, and not until it fell upon him did he realize it was rain, dripping and sliding through the green canopy to the ground. He stood and let the warm rain wash the sea from him, comforted, despite his sorrow, by the heat and the sounds and scents of life. 

Among those sounds was that of running water, which he followed until he found a small waterfall leaping over a wall of rocks into a deep pool. He drank deeply, then hungrily watched the fish that swam in the pool's depths. But James had lost flint and tinder to the sea, and wondered where in this steaming forest he would ever find wood dry enough to burn. 

Then he lifted his head in surprise, for he smelled the faint scent of smoke, as if his very thought had called it up out of nothing. He rose and made his way warily through the trees, following the scent. He moved as quietly as a great cat, for the woodcraft he had learned in the cool forests of his youth had been honed by many years of soldiering in lands near and far. No forest he had ever known was as thick with life as this one, but he moved through it as swiftly and as surely as though he had been born in its warm green depths, and not in a great stone house between the mountains and the sea. 

The deeper he went into the forest, the stronger became the smell of smoke, and his belly knew before his eyes did that it was cooking-fires that drew James along. Soon he could hear the sound of voices, deep as men's would be, lighter like those of women--and even the laughter and shrieks of children. James stopped at edge of a clearing, near enough to see but protected from being seen. 

The clearing was filled with people. Supple and brown they were, with dark eyes and straight hair as black as a raven's wing. Some of the men stood apart, watchful, their bodies painted with swaths of red and black. James knew, as like knows like, that these men were warriors like himself. 

Suddenly one turned, his eyes finding the exact spot where James lay hidden. He wore a breechclout and a cloak of red and black, with necklaces of stone and teeth and bone, and feathers of bright birds. He carried a spear, and his face was kind, and wise, but James--ever the careful soldier--neither moved nor spoke. The strange man walked toward James, as if the thick screen of plants and vines were no barrier to his sight. He stopped but an arm's-length from James' hiding place, and held out his hand. 

"Come, Sea-Eyes. I am Incacha, and this is where you are meant to be." 

Forgetting his usual wariness, James stood and walked through the curtain of green to stand before the man in the red-and-black cloak. Perhaps it was his hunger, or his weariness, or his longing for another human voice that made him less careful than was his wont. Perhaps it was the knowledge that this man spoke the tongue that James had been taught, the tongue of the King's allies that he had crossed the great sea to aid. Or perhaps it was the voice that spoke to something deep in his soul, something that had lain sleeping since his father had first put the silver torc around his neck so long ago. Something that was beginning to wake once more. 

The strange dark-eyed people took James to their hearts as one of their own. They called him Sea-Eyes, as Incacha had, for their forest pools were green, or a deep dark that was almost black. Sometimes they called him the Man Who Wears Moonlight, for the torc he still wore around his neck was a great wonder to them. They had never seen silver, or the northern ice, and the coldest thing they knew was the light of the moon upon the sea. 

James aided the people in their battles against the rebels (although these were fewer than he expected)for such was his duty and his vow to his King. Though he little hoped to see his King again, or the mists and mountains of his home, a vow was a vow. As the cold moon waxed and waned time and again, the memories of his home faded, and James began to feel that this great green forest with its flower-bright birds was the only home he had known. 

And James came to wonder if it would be so hard a thing if he never saw the lands of mists and mountains again, for this great forest between the mountains and the shore of the Southern Sea was a balm to his soul. Though the torc lay as close upon his throat as it ever had, the weight of the invisible armor lessened every day. Before the moon waxed and waned a single time he could barely feel it, and only its absence showed him what a burden it had been. Not since his boyhood had he felt so light, and with the lessening of the power of the torc his hunter's skills of old came back in a great flood. 

One night he went foraging with the men all the way to the edge where the forest met the sea, not far from the stone cairns he had built over the bodies of his men. He woke screaming at dawn, crying out that the light burned his eyes and the sand upon his skin was like ground glass and the sea roared in his ears until James thought he would die with it. Only the voice and touch of Incacha could pull him from the brink of madness. At first James was afraid, and wondered how he could get his armor back, but Incacha soothed him. "You have the earth-magic, Sea-Eyes," Incacha said. "It is a great gift." 

"It seems a curse to me, not a gift," James groaned. "And how can this be magick? Magick is a thing that must be learned from Wizards and their scrolls; a thing of spell and ritual and careful working. I am no Wizard, and the only scrolls I have ever studied taught the crafts of war." 

Incacha smiled. "There is more than one kind of magic in the world. One kind is learned, and most can learn a little, though fewer have the gift or the skill to work the great spells. But that is not the only kind." 

James shook his head. "That is the only kind the mages of my people know. They claim there is no other." 

"Then they lie," Incacha replied, "or they are fools. There is the earth-magic, which is not learned, but simply is. If you have it, it is part of you, like the color of your eyes or the shape of your fingers. And it is strong in you, Sea-Eyes." 

"If it is part of me," James asked, "then can I never be rid of it?" 

"It may sleep for many years, but it will not leave you...and the longer the sleep, the harder the waking. I will help you, Sea-Eyes." 

And Incacha did as he promised, and James soon began to remember the days of his boyhood, when his farseeing eyes and sharp ears and touch upon the ground seemed a gift and not a burden. There was no winter in this land to make food scarce, but no human enemy nor fanged predator could come upon them unaware; no change in the weather caught them by surprise. As time wore on, the King's soldier faded, and James seemed more like a great cat than a human warrior. What little of his clothing that survived the shipwreck was laid aside for a breechclout. His pale skin was painted red and black; he carried a bow and a blowpipe instead of a sword. Only his height, and his sea-colored eyes, and his silver torc set him apart. He moved with these small brown people from season to season, at one with the green heart of the forest, and he rarely saw the sea. 

A year and a half passed in a green dream of warmth and peace, and James was almost content. But he was troubled by a another dream, a dream that sometimes seemed more real than his waking life. He would seem to wake to a sound that he had not heard since he came over the great sea--the howl of a wolf in this far Southern land where no wolf had ever come. 

The longing in the beast's cry called forth a longing in his own heart, but he knew not what he longed for. One night he spied a shape at the edge of the clearing. He should have been able to see it with his farseeing eyes, despite the dark, but it remained indistinct. Taking his bow, he crept closer, until he stood no further from it than the length of his body. Suddenly a shaft of moonlight pierced the canopy of trees to fall upon a gray wolf, with eyes the color of the sky in summer. James stared at the wolf and felt himself drowning in those summer-blue eyes. Heedless of any danger, he stretched out his hand, longing to bury it in the wolf's fur. He woke suddenly to find himself in his own hut, lying alone in his hammock. 

He stared at the roof of leaves, heavy in his heart. He was always alone, for he could not quite forget that he was here to serve his King. Kind as these people were, he was not one of them. Many of the lithe young maidens with their raven's-wing hair had offered to share his hammock. But James had naught but contempt for the kind of soldier that peopled the lands he visited with bastards, never giving a thought to them or their mothers again. Of all these people he was closest to Incacha, and more than once he thought of asking if their customs permitted such a joining of one man to another. For Incacha was more than a warrior, he was some manner of Mage among his own people, and the wisest among them. Finally he found the courage to ask as if the answer would satisfy nothing but his curiosity, but Incacha was not fooled. 

"Sea-Eyes," he said, "it is not I who is your heart's desire. Neither that nor your destiny lie in this land. But it is my task to set you on the road to one, and give you back the other when you have lost it." James did not understand, but, in the manner of mages everywhere, Incacha would say no more. The next day, the hunters were out in the forest when James suddenly tilted his head and was still. 

"What do you hear?" Incacha asked. 

James did not answer at first, for it had been so long since he had heard the sound it was now strange to him. Suddenly he recognized the meaning of what he heard, and knew this dream was ended. "I hear the sound of water striking wood, and the creak of ropes, and canvas straining against the wind. I hear a ship." 

When they reached the edge of the forest, James gazed out over the water, and saw that the great sailing ship bore the device of his King. So he stepped out of the trees and onto the sands, and spoke to the astonished sailors in words which first sounded strange to his own ears, for he had not spoken his native tongue in many days. He bid farewell to the people of the forest, and it pained him, for they had become like his own. And his parting from Incacha was like a knife in his heart, for the man had become more than a brother to him, if less than a lover. But duty had settled over him like a coat of mail, for he was still a soldier in the army of his King. So when the great ship hoisted its sails into the wind, James stood upon its deck. He watched Incacha and his fellow warriors fade into the forest, and the stone cairns he built with his own hands fade into the distance. 

James felt his heart grow heavy as the ship carried him north, for he learned from the sailors that the King's ship had not come seeking him a-purpose, but that he had long ago been given up for dead. This ship sought only fresh water upon a likely shore, and mere chance had brought it to the same place where James' ship had foundered and his men died in the service of their King. All the while James fought his King's battles in this distant land, no effort had been made to aid them, or learn their fate. For the first time in many moons, James felt the weight of his armor, and it was a sore burden. 

The farther they sailed from the great green forest with the flower-bright birds, the heavier the armor grew, and by the time they reached the port at Riverfall the veil was once again between James and the world. His eyes saw no farther than other men's, his ears heard nothing theirs did not. Touch, taste, smell were those of an ordinary man once more. All was so like it had been before James had taken ship with his men that his time among Incacha's people seemed almost a dream--except his heart had changed. For James valued loyalty too much to be easy in his heart at the way he and his men had been cast aside like so much flotsam upon the wide sea. He knew he could no longer serve the King with all his heart, and that his days as a soldier were ended. The Captains bid him a reluctant farewell, and discharged him with honor. 

James knew nothing but soldiering, and needed to find work, for he would not go back to the stone house of his father. He remembered that Incacha had told him that those who possessed the earth-magic were the protectors of their people. So although James no longer felt the earth-magic, he deemed it a good thing to be such a protector. He thought the City Guard might welcome a seasoned warrior into their ranks, and so they did. So James traded the garb of one warrior for that of another, and was almost content. He also remembered that Incacha said the earth-magic might sleep, but never leave him. _The longer the sleep, the harder the waking_. What would he do if it woke again, with no Incacha to keep him from madness? But that fear was locked away in his heart with all the others. 

* * *

Young Jacob flourished at the School of Wizards like a seed that has found the right soil at last. He drank knowledge from his roots, and basked in the learned words that poured over him from the lips of the Mages and from the whispering leaves of ancient scrolls. He moved quickly from Apprentice to blue-robed Journeyman, but seemed in no hurry to don the black robes of a Master and wear a silver star upon his brow. Jacob, like his mother Naomi, was still a wanderer at heart. He wandered in the dim recesses of libraries and archives among old books and scrolls that bore the dust of years upon them. His quick mind wandered from one store of ancient knowledge to another, finding bits of treasure where others saw only the detritus of the past. 

Nor did he limit his wanderings to the pages of books. The Masters might have preferred that he stay within the stone walls of the School, teaching the apprentices (which he did very well and for little cost to them). Young Jacob reveled in both teaching and learning, but his travels as a boy had taught him that there was much to be learned outside the pages of books, and that things are not always what they seem. So whenever a Master from the School of Wizards ventured out into the wide world, whether to discourage a marauding dragon, examine some newly discovered object of power, or hunt down a rumor of some new magick in a distant land, Jacob was likely to be a part of his retinue. 

When the School closed down during harvest, Jacob often took to the road. He was a natural healer both of bodies and of souls, and his years in the School added the power of knowledge to his inborn gift. He ranged far and wide, and was welcome wherever he traveled. Unlike many of the Masters, whose pride at the their black robes and silver star often overcame their sense, he listened to the words of the lowly as well as the great. He lived among people that the great Mages seldom saw and never thought of. There were the copper-skinned people of ancient lineage who lived in the depths of the forest but had no written language; the fisher-folk of the Archipelago who followed schools of fish far into the sea on their great rafts and seldom came to land; the small people of the hills who were so elusive that the town dwellers thought them more fay than human. 

Jacob needed to perform some great feat to earn the black robes of a Master, and bring the silver star to life upon his brow. He could use his learning and his skill in scrying to find some great treasure, like an old dragon hoard in some mountain's heart--but many had done that before him. He could heal some great warrior or prince, bringing him back from the brink of death, but Jacob preferred to heal the common soldiers and the washer-women and their children, who needed it more and expected it less. He could call the shade of some ancient Queen from the Land Beyond Death, but he thought the dead deserved the peace they had earned and should not be made to come at his beck and call like dogs. He had no doubt of his own skill, and was sure the silver star would be his someday, but was in no hurry to make it so. He was almost content with his life, for there was always more to learn, and he had food in his belly and a roof over his head, and many friends, and not a few lovers. 

One day he found an ancient book in a crumbling castle on the northern marches. The venerable knight who lived there was the last of his line, and had little interest in books, ancient or new. He was happy to trade it to the journeyman Wizard for a good strong spell to keep his roof intact, and thought no more of it. Jacob could no more resist an old book than a flirtatious glance, and he opened it eagerly as he sat by his fire that night in the woods. It seemed at first a book of traveler's tales, treasure enough for a young man for whom tales of far lands and strange peoples were as meat and drink. But there was more sustenance within its pages than he knew, for soon he came to a tale of a land to the south--farther than he had ever been--and of mighty warriors, protectors of their people, who wielded the earth-magic as easily as sword or bow. 

Jacob felt as if the words were arrows, striking him in his heart, bringing not pain but a great longing. Here was a task worthy to take him from Journeyman to Master. He would study the earth-magic, prove that it was real. Few of the Masters believed it to be anything but a bard's tale, no more real than geese that laid golden eggs or maidens who turned into trees. But Jacob listened not only to the Masters...and he had seen many strange things in his travels, and heard stranger. 

He had known hunters who could scent game upon the wind better than their dogs; and cooks who could taste a single grain of salt in a barrel of water; and a blind old weaver who could tell the color of a thread by the touch of her fingers; and many more. Perhaps these were but sports, like a cat born without fur or a single yellow daisy in a field of white--but perhaps they were remnants of earth-magic, rare in these times but not gone for good. 

As Jacob pulled his cloak around him and lay upon the ground to sleep, he thought what a fine thing it would be if he could find once and for all another kind of magic in the world. An ancient magic it was, if tales be true-not a thing of spell and ritual and words and potions, but embodied in a man, walking in the everyday world, carrying magic within him like the very blood in his veins. That would be a treasure indeed, better than another dusty dragon-hoard. 

He dreamed of his future as Jacob the Mage, son of Naomi, wearing the rich black robes of a Master with velvet trim upon the sleeves instead of a shabby and travel-worn journeyman's tunic. His mother would be an object of scorn no longer, but of envy...and he would be a great teacher and healer with a silver star that blazed upon his brow, and all the books and scrolls he could ever want, and a fine horse to carry him on his wanderings instead of his own weary feet. Just before Jacob slipped from dreams of his glittering future into true sleep, he almost thought he heard the distant howl of a wolf. But strangely, he was not afraid. 

Years passed, and Jacob grew in wisdom and strength. He was not a large man, even at his full growth. But his years of wandering and working had given him strength and endurance more worthy of a warrior then a Wizard, although he would have laughed at the notion of himself as any kind of warrior. He no longer lived within the stone walls of the School of Wizards, for those chambers were set aside for the younger students who needed more looking after. If the truth be told, Jacob was a Master Wizard in all but name, more skilled than many (younger than himself) who already won their black robes and silver star. 

Now the silver star is not placed upon the brow of a Master when he earns his rank, as many believe. It is the outer symbol of his inner power, and it grows upon him as that power grows--faintly at first, then shining more brightly as if with its own light. But until the journeyman Wizard earns his Mastery, none can see it but another Wizard. When he proves his worth to his teachers, a Spell of Unveiling is spoken over him as he dons his black robe, and the star blazes forth for all to see. New Masters at the School were always surprised to see a star so bright upon the brow of one who still wore the Journeyman's tunic. More than one teacher urged young Jacob to give up his notion of proving the truth of earth-magic, and win his robes. For if the truth be told, Jacob had already learned enough new and wonderful things in his studies and travels to be worth a Master's robe, if he would but present it formally to the Examiners. But Jacob hesitated, unwilling to abandon his dream of finding a wielder of the earth-magic still walking in the world. 

Because he taught apprentices at the School, Jacob was allowed to keep his books and scrolls in a small corner of a storage room, amid dusty boxes of odds and ends that the Masters had picked up on their travels--things too intriguing to throw away but not interesting enough to study just yet. He lived near the docks in a large room in a drafty building given over to the storage of goods waiting to be shipped or sold. It was but one small step from a hovel, but an impecunious journeyman Wizard who bought books before food or clothes could afford no better. Jacob lived alone (though he did not always sleep alone), for there are few who like to share chambers with a brash young Wizard, his dusty books and strange potions. Though Jacob had many friends and lovers there were none who truly touched his heart. 

A young Wizard busy with teaching and learning, and with little coin in his pocket, is not likely to come to the attention of the City Guard. The King's city of Riverfall is a large one, the largest for many miles around, and filled with people from lands near and far. So years passed while the tall City Guard with eyes the color of snow-shadows in sunlight, and the young Journeyman Wizard with wild hair the color of chestnuts in autumn, walked the same streets. But their paths did not cross. But though destiny is patient, it will not be denied. 

* * *

One fine day as Jacob sat poring over an old scroll in his shabby room, there came a knock at the door. Jacob opened it to see a young woman on his threshold, an Apprentice Healer named Jenny with whom he had dallied now and again. But her face was grave and troubled, and she did not look like a woman with dalliance on her mind. 

"Jacob," she said, "I am on my way to the butcher's wife, who is in need of a midwife, and as I passed I thought to ask your aid with something else. I have in my care a man in great pain and in need of healing. I have done all I can, and the Master Healers as well, and he is no better." 

Jacob wondered at this, for although he had no little skill, he was no Master Healer. "Why do you think I can help him, if your Masters cannot?" 

"Because," she replied, "he claims that the light hurts his eyes, although we have but one small candle in the farthest corner of his room. He tears the clothes from his body and asks us why we give him nothing but hair shirts when he is no penitent. He accuses us of poisoning him when we give him only the purest spring water. We have him in the farthest corner, with all the rooms near him empty--and he cannot sleep for the labored breathing of the dying and the smell of sickness all about him." 

Jacob stood staring at her as one transfixed, afraid to believe his long quest might have an end at last. 

"I remembered," the healer continued, "that you have made a study of those who can hear what others cannot hear, and see what most do not. I hoped that you might know something to help, for it is a hard thing to see a man in such pain and have no power to ease his suffering." 

Then Jacob was filled with compassion to match his excitement, and ran all the way through the streets of Riverfall to the Houses of Healing. Although he had been there many times before, he had never been to the distant corner of the farthest tower where Jenny had told him the man was kept. He was not sure he had come the right way, and saw no one to ask, until he spied a woman with dark copper hair and a troubled face coming toward him down the corridor to his left. "Tell me, good woman, do you know where in these chambers I might find that of a City Guard named James?" 

The woman gazed at Jacob in fear. "Who has called for a Wizard? Are you here to ease his spirit into the Land Beyond Death? Have they lied who told me he was not in mortal danger?" 

"Nay, I am here not as a Wizard but as one with some small skill in healing--calm your fears. Is this man kin to you?" 

Sighing in relief, the woman sank to a stone bench along the wall. "I am Caro, the apothecary. James was once betrothed to me, but no longer." She raised her face to Jacob's. "But he is still my friend, and to see him so is like a knife in my heart. Can you help him?" 

Jacob sat beside the woman on the bench and took her hand. "I am no Master Healer, but I have been to many strange lands where few others have traveled. I know ways of healing that others do not. I shall do my best. Will you wait?" 

The woman rose and shook her head. "I have left my shop too long in hands of my apprentices. But if there is aught to tell, you can send me word. My shop is in River Street, across from the Guard post." After pointing out the right room to Jacob, she turned and walked away, hunched as if in pain. 

The room she showed him was all the way at the end of a long dark hallway. At first Jacob wondered if the lady Caro had become confused in her grief, for the room was totally dark, and no candle burned in a corner or elsewhere. Though it was bright day outside, this chamber had nary a window, and it seemed black as a dungeon. He moved cautiously into the room, feeling his way for any furniture that he might bruise his shin against. 

Suddenly, quicker than he could cry out, he felt himself lifted off his feet from behind and slammed against the stone wall with a strong arm around his neck and a knife at his throat. 

"Who are you who creeps in here like a thief in the night? You are no Healer!" 

Jacob could barely speak, for the body that held him against the wall, pressed to his back, was as hard and unyielding as the stone he was pushed against. 

"I am no thief, and neither is it night," Jacob replied in a whisper. "I am a mighty Wizard with skill in healing, and if you do not release me I can turn you into a lizard in the blink of an eye." 

The tall man with the strong arm stepped back, whether in astonishment that a man with a knife at his throat would speak so boldly, or in fear of becoming a lizard, none could tell. "Forgive me if I misjudged you," he growled. "There is no need to shout." 

"May I turn now," Jacob asked even more softly, "and see the man who pounces upon hapless Wizards like a cat upon a mouse?" 

"If you wish." 

Jacob turned slowly, as he would with a strange animal. When he lifted his head to search the gloom for James--for surely this was he--he had no time to speak. The other man cried out suddenly as if in great pain, and Jacob heard the sound of a knife clattering to the floor. "What is wrong?" he whispered. 

"You are a Wizard indeed," the man groaned, "but the light of that star upon your brow pierces my eyes like knives. I cannot bear it!" 

Jacob caught his breath. How could this Guard see what only a Master Wizard could see, what Jacob could not even see himself? Coming to his senses, he removed the ragged scrap of linen that belted his tunic and bound it across his forehead. Then he rummaged in his pack for a dusty vial with a shape like no other and pried open the stopper carefully by touch alone. A fragrance as of green growing things filled the stone chamber. 

James groaned again, but this time in surprise and relief rather than in pain. "Does that help?" Jacob asked. "Will you open your eyes now?" 

"What magic spell have you wrought?" James asked in wonder. "This is the first time in days I have not been in pain so great I wished to die--and I was soldier in the King's army for many years, and no stranger to pain." 

"This is no magic spell," Jacob explained, "but an oil made from herbs that grow in the heart of the northern forest. There is an ancient people there, hard to find, who still have such lore." 

"May they be blessed for their knowledge," the Guard sighed. "Why do you whisper?" 

Jacob smiled, and spoke in his normal voice. "Do you think you could find the candle and light it again?" 

The Guard rose silently and moved away. Soon Jacob heard the strike of a flint in one far corner and a spark leaped out of gloom once, twice. The third time the tinder caught and the flame of a candle made a small pool of light in the darkness. As James walked toward him, Jacob stared at the man who was the end of his long quest. He was tall and lean, but with the shoulders of a smith and the feral grace of a great cat. He carried the candle before him, and its small flame illuminated little but his face and breast. Jacob remembered what Jenny had told him about the man's inability to bear the texture of clothing, and wondered whether to be disappointed or relieved that the candle gave no more light than it did. He needed to keep his wits about him. 

James lifted the candle so the light fell upon Jacob. "You are but a boy," he said in astonishment, "and a mere Journeyman. How is it that you have given me ease when no Master Healer could?" 

"Because you have no sickness, Guard. You have the earth-magic, and it is a great gift. And I am older than I look." 

James gaped to hear the words of the great and wise Incacha come from the lips of this ragged boy. For boy he still seemed to James, with his bright eager face and wild hair and sky-blue eyes. And ragged he certainly was, with his patched blue tunic and the bedraggled linen bound around his brow, that did not quite hide the light underneath. His voice was soft, but deep, with a power that tingled still in the Guard's flesh, and a flicker in the depths of his beautiful eyes that spoke of a soul older than his strong young body. 

James shook his head to clear it of such treacherous thoughts about one who was a stranger to him. The armor around his heart made him wary of others, and slow to trust. This young upstart was no great Mage of his people as Incacha was. Jacob was busily dripping the oil onto a scrap of fleece, which he put into a small leather bag. He threaded a long silken cord through the leather and pulled it taught, then handed it to James. "Put this around your neck, and breath in its essence if you feel pain again. I would venture into the garden with you, to see if it protects you outside." 

James was fearful that the pain would return, but to be kept in this lonely room like an animal in a cage was a great torment for one such as he. He was used to roaming the streets of Riverfall as one of its Guard, and riding out to the villages and fields and forests roundabout on his Captain's orders, or for his own pleasure. He rose eagerly and made for the door. "Anything to be rid of this prison." 

"James--" Jacob could not hide the smile in his voice. "Though many of those without might thank you for it, it might be best not to go into the garden wearing naught but a torc." 

The Guard stopped abruptly, thankful that the room was too dim to show the color his face must be. He found shirt and breeches and boots, and dressed quickly as befitted a Guard who had been a soldier. The young Wizard bowed his head, but watched through the curtain of his hair. 

They moved down the long stone corridors toward the central courtyard. James walked slowly at first, expecting the pain to return as each turn brought more light to his eyes. But though light and sound and smell became greater as they moved toward the center, the soothing green scent of the oil did its work. Although sounds and sights and smells were sharper, it was more the gentle swells of the bay in summer than a winter storm on the great sea. When they entered the garden, James felt a faint echo of the peace that had once filled him in the great forest with the flower-bright birds. 

The young Wizard walked beside the tall Guard, saying nothing but watching carefully as his sculpted face relaxed into a measure of peace. His farseeing eyes never ceased moving, however, as befits a man used to a life of soldiering and guarding. He seemed to Jacob like a picture from an old book of the tales of heroes, stepped out from the page and walking in the world. But this was but a man, no hero from an old tale, Jacob told himself. He was but a man in need of help, and the key to Jacob's Mastery as well. He had searched too long for proof of the earth-magic to let himself be distracted by a tall, comely body and eyes the color of snow-shadows in sunlight. He had. 

"What now, Wizard?" asked the Guard. "Must I bear this burden the rest of my life? Twice it fled from me, and twice it returned. I would be rid of it, but I fear that if it came back again it would be death to me, or madness. You do not have enough oil in that small bottle to last me the rest of my life." 

"It was not meant to be an end, only a temporary surcease--as you might do what you could for a wounded man upon the field of battle, until a Healer could be summoned. Tell me how the earth-magic came to you, and how it fled, and returned." 

James guarded words like a miser guards his gold, and none had heard the story of his childhood since the day he left the stone house between the mountains and the sea. But the Wizard's voice would not be denied, and pulled the words from him like splinters from his flesh. Though it was as painful at first, the pain eased in the telling. When he was through it was as if clean blood finally flowed from a wound long festered. 

Jacob pushed aside the collar of the Guard's shirt, and the warrior shivered as the Wizard's capable fingers touched the silver torc, which seemed almost to warm at his touch. "Was this writing upon it from the first? Do you ken what these runes mean?" 

"It is today as it was when my father first placed it there, except in size. It has grown as I have grown. The runes are not in a language my father knew well, and I know less. Can you tell what it means?" 

"I can tell you what it _says_." Jacob stood to see all the writing as it wound round the silver circlet. "But as to what it means, that is another thing altogether. A Mage never states his meaning clearly in such a charm." 

"Well, Wizard, will you at least tell me what it says?" 

"I shield your heart,   
Your soul in thrall,  
Till one shall come  
Who giveth all  
To gaineth all." 

James gasped as the words seemed to grasp his heart like a hand. There was some portent here, but he knew not whether it spelt doom for him or boon. 

Jacob seemed transfixed by the silver torc with its ice-blue jewel, and by the words he had just uttered. But he caught himself, and shook his head, and the spell was broken. "There is more to this invisible armor of yours than there seems, and this charm was certainly powerful enough to drive the earth-magic inward for a time. But the charms of Wizards cannot prevail against the earth-magic forever, for it is older than charms or spells, and draws its power from the earth itself. It strengthens away from the haunts of men, as it did in this southern forest you speak of. Have you been away from the City much of late?" 

James stared at the Wizard. "I was alone in the forest for many weeks, tracking outlaws who were poaching the King's deer." 

The young man nodded, his silver earrings flashing in the sunlight. "That would be more than enough to call it forth again." 

"You say this is no sickness, so how can I be healed? Shall I carry this burden forever, like a man who does not die of his wound but carries a limp to the grave?" 

"Think of this not as a wound, but a weapon. It seems it might be a fine thing for a Guard and a warrior to see what others cannot see, and hear what they cannot hear. To catch the faintest scent of a fleeing thief upon the wind, or tell by a touch if a woman died from a fall or a blow. To know from the merest taste if a foaming mug of ale held happiness or death." 

"A weapon is a good thing, if you can trust it. But a sword can be turned against you, or fail you in battle." The tall Guard sank heavily to a stone bench as if he carried the weight of the world on his broad shoulders. 

Jacob sat beside him. "Tell me, warrior, were you born knowing how to wield a sword or shoot a bow?" 

"Do not mock me, Wizard," James said sharply. "It takes many years of training, and practice until you think you cannot lift it one more time, to learn the use of a weapon." 

"Nor should you expect less of this weapon," Jacob replied softly. "The earth-magic will serve you well in time, but you must learn to wield it. And none save I can teach you." 

The Guard glared at the young man beside him. "You carry no sword, but you are well armed with words, and proficient in their use." 

Jacob smiled. "You have your weapons, Guard, and I have mine. Will you let me guide you in this?" 

James found himself offering his hand to the ragged Wizard almost without knowing he did so. He was not a man to make friends easily, for his armor had grown ever stronger over the years, and his life lonelier. What protected him from the ill will of others still imprisoned his heart as well. He admired his Captain, and even called him friend, but still there was a veil between them. The lovely Caro had tried her best, laying seige to his heart for many months. For a time he thought she might breach his armor, relieve him of its burden, and let her love be a shield to him instead. But it proved beyond her strength, and she gave up the attempt, and now but watched him sadly from afar. 

Something in this quicksilver creature spoke to the Guard's soul, he knew not why or how. Strangely, as their hands clasped, he felt for a moment that his armor had become lighter, and his familiar burden less. So a pact was made between them, that the Guard would be the means of the young Wizard's Mastery, and add to his store of knowledge. And the Wizard would guide the Guard in his mastery of the earth-magic, and forge it into a weapon he could use to protect the people as he had sworn to do, and bind his wounds when he bled from the sharp edges of his strange power. 

At first the people of Riverfall marveled to see the tall Guard with his warrior's stride going about the City with the quicksilver young Wizard by his side, for such a thing was rare indeed. But as time came to pass, it seemed less strange. The Wizard became more like a warrior, for his daily life now held as many footpads and murderers as it did students and scholars. He had always been good with his hands, and quick to master tools. Although he carried no sword he soon learned that a sturdy brick or well-flung rock served as well as a Guard's sword to discourage those who would do him harm. 

James had his friends among the Guards--more now than before the young Wizard came into his life--and they jested about the young man's quick wit in turning whatever odd thing lay at hand into a weapon at need. A fleeing thief had been laid low with a well-aimed melon. Another had been stopped by a frying pan upon his pate (a weapon not common for a Guard but well known to any goodwife with a drunken lout of a husband to deal with). Simon, the Captain of the Guard, still laughed at the would-be assassins who came to grief in a cleverly placed dung cart. 

The warrior, on the other hand, became--if not like a Wizard--like one who felt the touch of magic. He did not flaunt his powers, but none who saw him day after day could help but marvel at his skill in tracking, or his knowledge that seemed to come from nowhere. He had soon told his Captain the true reason the ragged Wizard dogged his steps, but others had been spun a tale of a young scholar who wished to study whether a Master Wizard might somehow serve the Guard as the great Warrior-Mages served the King's army. To those who had known him long, James was much changed. He was still a taciturn man, with few but valued friends, but those he had were closer than they had been, and less fearful. The black moods that had once driven them away came less often, and did not last as long, especially when Jacob was about. 

And Jacob was about more often than one would expect of a Journeyman Wizard with studies of his own and apprentices to teach. Not long after the pact in the garden of the Houses of Healing, the ramshackle building that held Jacob's humble room was burned to the ground in a great fire. It seemed that more than goods for the great ships were kept in the room below, for an evil alchemist had used it to brew his poisons. Alchemy is a dangerous art, and it proved fatal to the alchemist and almost to Jacob. He escaped with little but the clothes on his back, and the most precious of his books and scrolls. 

Lodgings were few for a journeyman Wizard who had few coins to begin with and even fewer now, since he spent what little he had on books and herbs and potions needful for his study of earth-magic. To the amazement of himself no less than any who knew him, the taciturn Guard found himself taking in the quicksilver Wizard with the ready tongue--just for a fortnight. The other Guards, and Caro the Apothecary, placed wagers on how soon Jacob would find himself and his belongings on the street again, for James was no easy man to live with. But the fortnight turned into a year. 

Caro watched from the window of her shop across the street from the Guard-post. She saw how James, who liked not either touching or being touched, would place his arm around the shoulder of the young Wizard, or touch his cheek, or cuff him gently on the shoulder, smiling. The Wizard would slip an arm around the Guard's waist, or touch his back lightly as if to guide him--and James would not flinch, but seemed even to welcome such touches. A smile had been a rare thing to see on the face of James, even when he and Caro were betrothed, and a laugh even rarer. She had seen both more often since the Wizard's coming than in all the years she had known, and sometimes loved, the tall warrior who had seemed to carry a shield around his heart. 

Her best weapons had been unable to pierce it, and although she wished James well, she did not know if she could bear to see another emerge the victor after she had given up the fight. So she sold her shop, and hearing a good apothecary would be welcome in the kingdoms to the south, went down to the harbor one fine morning, and onto a ship that set sail upon the sea. She watched James and Jacob and her other friends waving farewell from the shore, and her heart lightened a little. A good soldier knew when to quit the field. 

The days passed, and the Guard's spacious cottage by the sea--which had once had the cold cheerless look of a soldier's barracks--gained yet more herbs hanging from its rafters, and baskets woven by the sea-people on its walls, and beautiful painted pots from the south on the mantel, and wildflowers in an old drinking-cup on the table. Scrolls and quills and inkpots lay scattered about, and James would grumble, and Jacob would tidy them up and put them away, only to scatter them about again. Sometimes they would travel away from the City, with Jacob on a borrowed horse, to fish in the forest streams or hunt for the herbs that Jacob needed for his potions, or simply to sit by the fire and watch the sun filter through the great trees at it sunk into the west. 

As days turned into years, James slipped into a contentment that sometimes put him in mind of his days in the forest with its flower-bright birds. The longer he spent with the Wizard by his side, the less he felt the weight of his armor. Especially at Jacob's touch, it often seemed as insubstantial as silk, and his heart lightened. 

For Jacob's part, he spent so little time within the stone walls of the School of Wizards, and so much of it with the City Guard, that many of the Masters began to grumble that he no longer had the heart to be a Wizard--that it had been given over to the Guards and their ways. Others encouraged such talk, because they feared what young Jacob would discover. The teaching of magick was both their life's work and their livelihood. They little cared for a kind of magic that was inborn and not taught, for they saw it as a threat to themselves, and a thing of evil. 

Jacob paid little heed to these mumblings. He still believed he would wear the black robes someday, but was strangely uncaring about when that day might come. As the years passed he began to wonder, now and again, if he had found his heart's desire after all. To spend each day in the presence of the tall Guard was greatly pleasing to him, and to sit beside their fire at night in the cottage by the sea even more so. Sometimes James would smile at him in a way that almost called the words to his lips--words that would either have his question answered for certain, or himself upon the doorstep with his pack at his feet. He feared the second too much, and was too uncertain of the meaning of those smiles, to ever take the risk. So Jacob slept alone in his small bed in the inglenook next to the fire, and James alone in the large bed at the top of the stairs. 

For though James seemed to enjoy Jacob's company, and was easier with him than most, his heart was still imprisoned by the power of the silver torc. As the years passed, Jacob began to wonder how its power might be broken, and the heart of the Guard freed from its prison. He knew not where the heart of James might light if it ever were released, though he had his hopes. He feared that his own might break if the tall Guard turned to another, but he was too generous a man to let that fear keep him from finding a way to release his friend. But try as he might, he could find no mention of such a charm in any of the scrolls or books in the School's vast library. Strangely, though Ellis the father of James had said that the Mage who made the charm was a Wizard at the School, none there could remember such a mage, nor any silver torc with a cold jewel in its center. 

James yearned to say the words that young Jacob wished to hear, but his invisible armor seemed to stop their utterance somewhere between his heart and his lips. All he had cared about in his life--his mother, his father, his brother, the service of his King, the love of Caro--all had betrayed him in the end and left him bereft. The power of the torc took the pain of each betrayal and fashioned its substance each time into stronger armor. Sometimes Jacob's voice, or his touch, or his smile, or his bright blue eyes (which had always seemed strangely familiar to James) would make it feel light as a feather cloak. But then James would remember his mother's flight, his father's accusations, his brother's silence. He would cast his mind back to the stone cairns on a far shore over the wide sea, and a King that had shown little more concern for him than for any weapon that was lost but easily replaced, and a woman who tried to free his heart but failed. And the words stayed locked in his heart, heavy as stones. 

One day when they sat by the fire in their cottage, a messenger came to the door. He bore a package wrapped in many layers of skins and oiled paper, much stained with earth and salt water. He said that it had come through many hands from a far land, from one ship to another, and was to be delivered to a Guard named James in the King's city of Riverfall in this northern land of mists and mountains. James marveled at this, and took the package, giving the messenger a coin for his trouble. 

Jacob stood close as the Guard began to unwrap it, eager as a child with another's naming-day gifts spread before him. As the many layers were taken away one by one, he suddenly heard James gasp. 

"What is it? Do you sense danger here?" 

"Not danger, not as most would call it. I have smelled these scents before, in the far land where my ship foundered years ago. The memories of that time can still pierce me like a sword." 

Jacob watched the Guard's face, touching a hand to his back as the tall warrior steeled himself to unwrap the last covering, a cloth of red and black. Before them lay a broken spear, with painted bands upon it and a bright bird's feather tied to its shaft. James grasped one half of the spear, then gave a great cry and sank to his knees. 

"What is wrong?" Jacob cried as he sank to knees beside his friend. "What does this mean to you?" 

James groaned again like a wounded beast. "It means Incacha is dead. His people have sent me this to tell me, for such is their custom." 

James bent to touch his head to the floor, bowed down by his grief. He still clutched the spear, and Jacob reached for it, lest James cut himself upon it. Suddenly the spear jerked, as if it had a soul of its own, and Jacob's arm was cut by the blade. The young Wizard stared as the blood streaked his arm, remembering the apparition in the cave. That Mage had carried just such a spear, and Jacob trembled when he remembered the red-and-black cloak that lay at the bottom of his chest in his chamber at the School of Wizards. He had treasured it all these years, thinking it too fine to wear once his journey to Riverfall was done. The blood made streaks upon his arm like the Mage's fingers had almost thirteen winters ago. The silver rings that pierced the lobe of Jacob's ear and the flesh of his breast seemed to pierce him anew, and he gasped at the surprise and the pain. 

At the sound, James raised his head and cried out in alarm. "Jacob, what have you done? The blades of these spears hold poison!" 

"Not this one, I think," Jacob replied, his voice shaking a little, "or you would have smelled it. But I think it holds some magic." And he told James of his vision in the cave all those years ago, and some of the words the Mage had said to him. But he did not say that the strange man had spoken of his heart's desire. 

And James told Jacob of Incacha, and how he had saved him from madness in the forest, and told him of the gift of earth-magic, and guided him in the wielding of it. But he said nothing of what Incacha had told him about his heart's desire. 

James took Jacob's hand in his own and looked upon his bloody arm, a strange look upon his face. "What is it?" Jacob whispered, a little afraid. 

"What you told me of the rings that pierced your flesh, and the blood upon you arm--I have seen such things before. Among Incacha's people, it was a ritual in which an older Mage would pass his power to a younger." Then James shook his head, and pulled Jacob to his feet and washed the blood from his arm and bound his wound. Both were silent that night, lost each in his own thoughts as they stared at the flames in their hearth. 

One day, when Jacob was at the Guard post without James, he overheard the Guard Megan talking to a tall woman with cornsilk hair. She had lost control of her horse in Market Street, where it had run down a peddler's barrow. She screamed in the street that the light hurt her eyes, and her clothes seemed made of nettles, and the clamor of the street about her would drive her mad. Jacob's heart began to beat faster, for he was sure that here was another who held the earth-magic within her. He remembered the pain and fear James had felt when the magic had awoken in him, and his heart was moved to pity. 

When she left the Guard-room, Jacob followed her, and hailed her at the threshold. Wary at first, she agreed to come to him the next day in his small chamber in the School of Wizards. Jacob told her there of the earth-magic, and asked her if she had been away from the town of late, out in the country. Amazed, she said that she had been deep in the forest, looking for rare plants to make dyes, and had become lost. Before she had found her way again, she had begun to see what others could not see, and hear what they could not. Taste, touch, and smell came to her as well, sharper than any mortal woman should feel. 

Jacob was glad to find another with the earth-magic, for such would only strengthen the proof he would someday present to the Masters. And though Jacob's path had meandered away from the straightest road to his silver star, he still hungered for knowledge no less than he had as a boy traveling the roads with his mother. He wondered if the way this woman Alexandra wielded the earth-magic would be different from that of James, and why, and how. For she was no warrior but a weaver, and he marveled in the pictures that her tapestries showed--visions of great cats such as he had seen along his road north, and great green forests with flower-bright birds, and a stone temple, and a great eye. He had seen the same things in many long-forgotten books and ancient scrolls, and always they came with words that spoke of earth-magic. 

But Jacob did not tell James about the woman, for he was not certain if such news would be welcome. When the broken spear had come, they had spoken of what Incacha's people knew, and what Jacob had learned concerning those few who were born with the earth-magic. In most of the tales both had heard, those who possessed the gift were wary of any they deemed outsiders, for such could be a threat to the people they protected. And each seemed to have his own people, and his own land, over which he watched. Jacob wondered at the fate that brought two such protectors to the same city, for it seemed strange. 

And Jacob, who thought celibacy a kind of starvation, thought it even stranger that Alexandra, who was very beautiful, called forth nothing in him but a scholar's interest and an odd wariness. When she smiled at him he thought of the smile of a wild dog about to sink its teeth into the flesh of its prey. When she touched him, he shivered, but not with desire. But he chided himself for his fancies, and did his best to help her--and said nothing of her to James, though he was but waiting for the right moment. 

Now James was often quiet, guarding words like his father had guarded his coins, and as loth to spend them. He gave more of them to Jacob than to anyone, and the young Wizard treasured them more than any coin. They saw each other little at this time, for Jacob was busy with Alexandra, and James with finding a clever thief who had killed a watchman. When they did speak, James used even fewer words than was his wont, and they were less likely to glitter like gold than cut like knives. The other Guards suffered his foul moods as well, and thought back to what James had been like before the young Wizard came to mellow him and make him smile. His smiles had fled, and they knew not why; he stalked the Guard-post and the City like a beast when it scents danger in its realm. 

One day as James was resting but a while in his cottage, weary with his labors, he fell into a deep sleep. It seemed that he was once again in the great forest with the flower-bright birds, hunting with his bow as he had so often done there. He knew that something moved in the trees, but he knew not what. It smelled like a beast to him, but not quite. It growled like a beast, but almost in a voice. He only knew that it was dangerous to him, but in what way he could not say. Suddenly he saw a patch of gray fur move before him, and he shot his bow, and heard the cry of the beast as it fell. He ran and quickly came upon his prey. It lay there with its eyes now summer-blue, now the color of the smoke of the fire as it rises to meet the evening sky. They were the eyes of the wolf he had seen when he lived among Incacha's people long ago. 

They were Jacob's eyes. They looked at him sadly as the light went out of them, and the beast died. As it died it changed, its body flowing like water into a new shape. And now James could see that it was no wolf, but Jacob who lay before him, naked and dead upon the forest floor. He woke from his vision gasping for breath, his heart beating as if it might burst. 

When Jacob came home that evening to the cottage by the sea, he first thought that he had somehow stepped back in time. It was as he had first seen it, a bare soldier's barracks with nothing in it of beauty or of comfort. Then he saw the few belongings he had brought with him three winters ago, placed in a traveling pack and sitting upon the floor. He stared at James, who paced like a caged beast. He was drawn tight as a bowstring and would not meet Jacob's eyes. 

"James--what have you done? What does this mean? Where are the tables, the herbs, the baskets and pots--" 

"I have put all in the cellars, for it all crowds upon me until I cannot breathe. I can bear nothing and no one here but myself." 

Jacob felt a tightness within his throat that made it hard to speak. "Nothing...and no one...no one but me?" 

James eyes flicked to his face for an instant, then skittered away. "No one at all." 

Jacob stood as if rooted, and was as though his heart were being crushed in a great strong hand. He felt for a moment that he would die where he stood, and have to be taken into the cellars like everything else that James could not bear to have near him. But little of his pain showed on his face, and he argued with James, wondering if this were some strange twist of the earth-magic, or some spell that had been placed upon the Guard. Something that a journeyman Wizard could fix. 

But James would not be moved, nor would he listen. So Jacob took up his belongings, and trudged through the streets of Riverfall to his small chamber within the School of Wizards. He had no proper bed there, only a pallet in the corner, and no fire. But as he lay there unsleeping through the long night, the cold in his limbs and the pain of his body were as nothing next to the ache in his heart. 

Jacob came to the Guard-house as he always did, for though he was no warrior, and had taken no Guard's oath, he knew the meaning of duty as well as they. The other Guards were sore troubled to see Jacob so bereft at the coldness of James. For the young man's generous heart and ready smile had won their friendship years before, as his bravery and cleverness had given them cause to value his help. They all had come to see that James and Jacob together were a greater thing than either of them apart. Like mist and sun that come together to make a many-colored arch upon the sky, the two made a magic between them that had nothing do with any spell or charm, and everything to do with two souls fitting together like mortise and tenon. 

When Jacob heard the words of those who had seen the thief and murderer that all were seeking, his heart grew even heavier, and he told James and his Captain Simon of Alexandra. James grew even angrier at that, feeling betrayed once more. That Jacob had acted in innocence moved him not. His armored heart felt safe once more in its familiar prison, with no blue-eyed and silver-tongued Wizard to trouble its surety. 

When Jacob brought James to meet Alexandra, the two were as rival beasts fighting for mastery in the same land. Before any could tax her with proof of her crimes, Alexandra was rumored to have fled the land, bearing a vial of deadly poison stolen from a powerful Alchemist. 

Jacob had gone to his chamber in the School of Wizards, for he had nowhere else. He wondered if he had taken the wrong road after all, for if James were indeed his heart's desire, that was surely out of reach now. Perhaps his destiny was to find his heart's desire and lose it, because he had not been clever or skilled enough to release the heart of James from its prison. Perhaps instead of the secrets of earth-magic, he should have sought harder to break the spell of the silver torc. 

While Jacob sat in his small chamber sorrowing, James was brought a taunting message from Alexandra. She was still in Riverfall after all, and would challenge him if he could but find her. The paper smelled of iron and smoke, and touching the paper with his fingers as Jacob had taught him, James knew that he felt wood-ash. He remembered a large smithy at the edge of the city, almost abandoned now because all the wood around had been cut, and there was no longer any fuel near enough to feed its fires. He scribbled a message to his fellow guards, then took a swift horse and rode hard toward the forge. 

Megan was the first of the Guards to see the message James had left. Cursing his pride and recklessness, and fearing for his safety, she took another swift horse and followed. She found James wounded and dazed at the bottom of a pit. The sides were poised to fall in at the slightest breath, and if they did James would surely die. Alexandra was still there, and she and Megan fought. Now the maidens of Megan's faraway land were tall and strong beyond the manner of most women, and she vanquished Alexandra, leaving her senseless upon the ground. Then she stretched down her hands to James, and pulled him out of the pit just before the sides collapsed in a roar of earth and stones. But when they went to find Alexandra to bind her, she had disappeared. Suddenly a great fear swept over James, greater than he had ever known. The earth-magic cried out to him that the thief had one more fell deed to do before she left Riverfall. 

He turned to Megan, stricken. "Jacob! We must go to Jacob!" 

They leaped upon their horses and rode to the School of Wizards, for they could think of no where else a homeless Journeyman Wizard might go. Upon the way they met Simon and two of the other Guards riding to their aid, and called upon them to turn and follow. The people of the city marveled, and hugged the walls as five Guards on their fastest horses galloped pell-mell through the streets of Riverfall as if all the demons of hell rode behind. They rode up to the great wooden door to the School of Wizards, and James was off his horse in a flash, pounding upon it as if to break it down with his own hands. 

The Wizards had sensed that something fell had entered their midst, and made haste to open the door to the Guards. The younger Masters had gone to open the iron-bound gate to the Keep, and James raced there as if his life depended upon it. James knew which of the great buildings held Jacob's small chamber, and ran toward it. Almost at its steps, he stopped and turned as a flash of blue caught the corner of his eye in a place no such cloth should be. The breath almost left his body as he saw, floating upon the waters of a great stone fountain, the body of a man dressed in the blue tunic of a Journeyman Wizard. The tunic was worn, and a ragged strip of linen bound it at the slender waist. The man's face was in the water, and long chestnut hair rose and fell as the wind rippled the water's surface. 

With a horrible cry, James rushed to the fountain and began to pull the body out, heavy as it was with the weight of water. Others came to help, and soon Jacob lay stretched out upon the grass of the courtyard, his blue eyes closed, his death-pale face cold despite the morning sun that shone upon it. He lay still and quiet as he had never been in life, with not even the faintest breath to move his still form. 

"Jacob!" James cried out in a voice of such pain that it brought tears at last to the eyes of his friends. "Jacob! Come back to me, I beg thee! Do not leave me here alone!" He cupped the pale face in his hands, stroking the still cheeks as if somehow the warmth of his touch could bring back life when it had fled. 

A man in the black robes of a Master, wearing the pendant of a Healer upon his breast, sank to his knees beside Jacob. He touched a hand to the young Wizard's still breast, and spoke words of power in every language he knew, for he had greatly admired the young man's skill in healing and his generosity in sharing his gift. He was the greatest Healer for many leagues, and knew many spells, but they were to no avail. He shook his head sadly as he rose, and a single tear made its way down his cheek. "It is too late. He has gone to the Land Beyond Death." 

"No!" James cried out. "You are no Healer if you can say such a thing. He cannot be gone from me...he cannot..." As he took the still body into his arms and held it to his breast, James' words turned into a keening wail of such piercing sorrow that all around them felt nought but open wounds where their hearts had been. 

While his friends wept silently, and James' cries of anguish split the air like a spear, Jacob saw it all from above, even his own still body upon the ground. He did not remember the moment of his death, but he remembered when Alexandra had entered his small chamber with sadness in her eyes and a sword in her hand. He thought she truly regretted his death, for he had helped her--but Jacob saw death in her eyes as well as sadness, and knew there was no hope for him. He had no weapon, but even without one he would once have fought for his life, when he still had hope of gaining his heart's desire. But that hope had fled, and what life he had now seemed too pitiful a thing to fight for. He remembered walking into the courtyard with her sword at his back, and the last thing his eyes had seen on the other side of death was the gleam of moonlight upon the waters of the fountain. 

He wondered now if he should have fought after all, for James' cries pierced his heart. He wondered if Alexandra's presence had put some manner of spell upon the Guard, and now that she was gone he could have come back to the cottage by the sea. It must surely pain his friend greatly that the last words between them on earth were ones of anger, and that now they could never be unsaid. Jacob had always thought the dead were beyond pain, but now he knew this was not so, for he ached at the sorrow of his friends and of James. But what could the dead do to succor the living? 

_I give you leave to call upon me in times of great need, and I will succor you_. Jacob looked at the glowing thing his body had become here in the Land Beyond Death, and saw still upon his finger the silver ring in the likeness of a wolf's head--although now it shone with a radiance beyond any on earth. He looked upon his left wrist, and both the rope of shining black and the blue stone woven into it seemed to glow from within. 

Jacob touched the ring to the bracelet. "Wolf, Cat, you told me you would succor me in a time of great need. Hear me, for if the dead have needs, I have need of you now." 

In the twinkling of an eye, the gray Wolf and great black Cat stood before him. "What boon would you ask of us, my brother? It seems your hour of greatest need has passed." 

"You did not say my hour of greatest need _in life_ ," Jacob reminded the Wolf. 

"No, I did not," agreed the Wolf, smiling--if a wolf could truly smile. 

"Do you ask that we send you back to the Land of Life?" The Cat asked in his rumbling voice. "For that is not within our power." 

"No," said Jacob. "I ask that you somehow ease his pain." He gazed upon the keening form of James, wishing that the tall Guard had held him so in life. "We last parted in anger, and I fear that now his sorrow will consume him." 

"There is only one way to keep his anguish from consuming his heart." The Wolf looked at Jacob with eyes that were the same blue as his own. "And it is not within our power, but within the power of another, if this is what you desire." 

"It is," Jacob said. "There can be no peace in death for me, if he still suffers so." 

"So mote it be," the Cat rumbled. 

Then Jacob saw below him the figure he remembered from his long-ago vision in the cave. The Mage glowed not with the light of the apparition he had been, but the spirit he was now. For Jacob now knew that this was Incacha, who had gone before him to the Land Beyond Death. He saw James raise his tear-streaked face in wonder as the Mage spoke to him, but Jacob could not hear his words. 

Then Jacob no longer saw his weeping friends and his own body lying still in the grass beside the fountain. It seemed that he was now in a great green forest with twining vines and flower-bright birds, such as James had once lived in. The great Cat was running through the forest, swifter than any beast he had ever seen. Light rippled upon the raven's-wing fur as upon silk. Then he saw the Wolf with his own eyes running too, toward the great Cat, bounding through the trees as no wolf had ever done. At the same time they both gave a great leap toward each other into the air. 

And Jacob was sure that both would die, for no bodies could meet with such force and live. But as they touched, both dissolved into a blinding light. Jacob was surrounded by the light of their joining, which seemed to flow into him and through him with a pleasure sweeter and more piercing than any he had ever known. It tumbled like a swift river through his limbs, and burst in his heart like another sun had come alive in his breast. Then he felt himself falling swiftly, but knew no fear. The next thing he knew was the feeling of grass against his cheek as he coughed up water, and the earth pressing against his legs, and--most precious of all--the strong arms of James holding him. He turned his head, and the blue of his friend's eyes was more beautiful than the blue of the sky around him. And Jacob knew his heart's desire at last. 

All in the courtyard who saw Jacob come back to life marveled, and took him swiftly to the Houses of Healing. There they marveled anew, for he seemed too hale and well for a man who had gone to the Land Beyond Death and returned again. They gave him teas to drink made of healing herbs, though he seemed not to need much healing. They covered him with warm blankets, though he was not cold. Indeed, he was warmer than he had ever been in this cool northern land, for the light of the joining of Wolf and Cat still warmed him to his bones. He knew now, as he knew his own name, that his true destiny was to be joined to the tall Guard who gazed upon him now with the shadow of his fear and sorrow still in his farseeing eyes. And Jacob knew also that such a joining would be the sweetest he had ever known, and fill him with the same light as his vision in the Land Beyond Death. 

So he told James what he had seen, and the tall Guard wondered at this, for he had seen the same, and said that the spirit of Incacha had shown him how to use the vision to bring Jacob back to the Land of Life. And then Jacob told James how the light had filled his body and soul when the Wolf and Cat had come together, and how it seemed that a second sun had given birth in his breast...and he looked upon the face of James, and told him much that he could not say with words. 

James turned his head, for the light that shone in the young Wizard's face was too bright for him to look upon. He knew Jacob's words for what they were--light that but kisses the surface of a deep pool, promising many wonders in its depths. He knew what was being asked, and offered, for the joining of Wolf and Cat had pierced his heart as well. For the smallest instant he had felt what it would be to have his heart freed from its prison, to stand free and naked to the world without his armor. But the moment had passed, and now he felt fear and longing in almost equal measure. The words would not come, though they beat against the bars of their prison more fiercely than ever before. But Jacob only took his hand, and smiled, and fell into sleep. For the young man was patient, and tireless, and would not turn from his journey now that knew the right road at last. 

Soon after, the Healers released Jacob from their care, shaking their heads and muttering about strange magicks. James took him back to the cottage beside the sea, where the herbs hung once more from the rafters, and the baskets of the sea-people again covered its walls, and the painted pots sat upon the mantel, and the old drinking-cup upon the table was even filled with wildflowers. 

Jacob saw that though James could not bring the words of apology to his lips, his deeds said what his lips could not. So Jacob spoke of his fear that Alexandra had put some spell upon her rival wielder of the earth-magic, and tried to ease the troubled heart of the Guard. His own heart was glad to sleep in his own bed in the inglenook beside the fire once again, although it would have been gladder to sleep in the bed at the top of the stairs. 

Then word came to the Guard that Alexandra had been seen in a far land to the south, offering to sell her poisons to whatever evil Alchemist or Sorcerer would meet her price. And James was troubled by visions of her there, and he and Simon vowed that they would follow her to this far land and end her evil once and for all. But James would not take Jacob with him despite his pleas, for he still woke in the night from fell dreams of the young Wizard cold and still in his arms, and feared for his safety. 

But Jacob feared more for James than for himself, and knew not what hurt the earth-magic might yet do when wielded by one with such an evil heart. The Guard Megan took pity upon him, for she knew that things are not always what they seem, and wondered at her fellow Guard who seemed to know what no man should know, and could bring the dead to life again. She saw the light in Jacob's face when he looked upon James, and sometimes saw the same look upon the face of the Guard when he thought no others were about. She knew not what force kept them from a joining that seemed to her as natural as rain upon the streets of Riverfall, but vowed to do her best to bring it about. Both the taciturn Guard and the quicksilver Wizard had found a place in her heart, and she ached to see them kept from the happiness that should be theirs. So she went with Jacob to the South, following upon the heels of James her friend and Simon her Captain. 

* * *

They were gone for many days, and when they returned none of them would speak of what happened. Simon would only say that the danger was passed, for Alexandra was now imprisoned within her own evil heart, and had been taken to the madhouse. The poison had been found before it was put to any use, and their task was done. Megan kept her own counsel, but was seen to look at both Jacob and James with new eyes, as if she could see more threads binding them than others knew. 

James said little, but that was nothing strange, after all. He seemed troubled in his heart, though, and sometimes treated Jacob as if he were fashioned of glass, and other times could barely meet his eyes. But sometimes he would gaze upon Jacob with a longing that would tear the heart, then turn his eyes away so none would see. Jacob seemed no longer quicksilver but steel, still bright to the eyes but with a strength that had been tempered in the forge. For those few who could see such things, an even older soul now looked out from his eyes. For he had been blooded by a mage's spear, and gone to the Land Beyond Death and come back again. Though only a Journeyman still to the Masters of the School, those who knew of the magic of other lands could see in him a power that had not been there before. 

Then came a strange time, quiet-seeming, but with a odd feeling in the air not unlike the herald of a storm. James seemed strange and almost fey. Though his heart was guarded his body was not, and he seemed dazzled for awhile by a woman he had known from his days as a soldier, running to her less like a lover and more like a beast who runs from the hunters. Megan liked the woman little, and grumbled about demon lovers, and watched Jacob with concern. But Jacob watched James quietly, and said little, and waited. Then James learned the woman he once thought he loved was another with an evil heart, and she died at the hands of another as evil as she. After that, he seemed to turn his back upon such pursuits, and fled no more, and waited for what fate would bring him. 

If those who had known Jacob long wondered at the change in him, they muttered that dying and then living again was sure to make a man thoughtful if nothing did. For he was quieter than he had been, and surer--more of a man and less of a boy. He ran to no woman's arms, and no man's, and this was certainly a wonder. For the Jacob of old had cut a swath through the maidens of the town like a scythe through wheat. Though none held his heart for long, nor he theirs, there was seldom any rancor in their parting. Now he spent all his time at the Guard-post, or at the School of Wizards, or in the cottage by the sea. 

Some thought the change in Jacob no more than was needful for a young scholar and Wizard who must turn to his studies. For the Masters of the School of Wizards were coming to the end of their patience, and told the Journeyman he must prove his Mastery by the Solstice or leave the School. And Jacob did labor long to write out the proofs of the earth-magic, and bring together all the books and scrolls and fragments he had discovered in his long years of searching. But he labored just as long seeking a way to break the power of the silver torc, though little could he find to help him. 

Some say the fates are goddesses who weave the threads of our lives, now binding them together, now pulling them apart, now cutting them at will. If such tales be true, many threads came suddenly together that strange fey Spring in the King's City of Riverfall. For Naomi the mother of Jacob came to the City again, hearing that her son would soon have his Mastery, and wishing to share his joy. She was as like as her son to befriend strangers on the street, and full of a mother's pride in his great learning, and the way in which he would prove his worthiness to wear the black robes and the silver star. 

But others who knew nothing of flame-haired Naomi talked of the earth-magic as well. The Healers still spoke with awe of a Guard with no such star upon his brow who nonetheless could bring a man back from the dead. Nor had James ever hidden the use of his powers in the course of his duty, and many had seen this, and now remembered. Not long ago, some whispered, he had found the murderer of a woman long dead, because her own shade had appeared to guide him to the one who took her life. 

Old Wizards within and without the School feared a threat to their own hoarded store of spells and potions, and grumbled still against this strange notion of a magic born, not made. Word of Alexandra had reached them from the south, and they saw this as proof that this earth-magic was evil, for had not she been evil? And the fell word "sorcery" was first heard upon their wizened lips. 

It was taken up by the merchants of the town, who had the same suspicious hearts as those who had spoken against James in the days of his youth in the House of Ellis. The merchants could not believe in any magic given freely as a gift of birth, and from them came the notion that the source of James' power was the silver torc that he wore upon his neck, for none had ever seen him take it off. Since they knew only buying and selling, they believed that James had bought the torc from some fell demon, using his soul as coin. So while Jacob and James lived their lives in School and Guard-post and cottage, a storm was brewing in streets and houses of Riverfall, a storm with the power to sweep all their hard-won peace away. 

For the torc that once protected James against the ill-will of others had lost its power to do so over the years. Like some once-wholesome food that in time turns to poison, it had turned from protection to burden. It still held his heart imprisoned, but did nothing against the muttering of the townspeople. Though the malice of a few was the spark, it found much tinder in fearful or suspicious or envious hearts. Soon a small flame here and there became a great conflagration, sweeping through the town like it often did in the dry summer forests of the south. 

One day as James made his rounds upon the streets of the town with Jacob as ever at his side, his ears picked up the sound of many angry voices. He made his way toward it to see what befell, as was his duty as a Guard. As he turned the corner, he beheld a crowd of people, some carrying weapons, listening to the words of a stooped old Wizard and a portly merchant with gold chains at his breast who stood upon the steps of an alehouse. The merchant suddenly spied the tall Guard making his way to the steps upon which he stood. 

"There he is!" the merchant cried. "There is the Sorcerer who sold his soul for the earth-magic!" 

Before James could do aught to defend himself, he was borne down by the weight of many bodies. His sword was ripped from its sheath and his knife also, and blows rained down upon him. Jacob fought like his brother Wolf to rescue his friend, but the crowd swept them apart like the pitiless sea. As James was hoisted above the shoulders of his tormentors for a moment, his eyes locked with those of Jacob. The Wizard could not hear the Guard's words over the roar of the crowd, but read the words in the shape of his lips, and they struck his heart like a blow. 

" _What have you done?_ " 

Knowing he could do no more by himself, Jacob ran for the Guard-house faster than he had ever run before, and the pain in his aching limbs was as one with the pain in his heart. When Jacob reached the Guard-house and gasped out his story, Simon was both fearful for his friend and wroth that a mere rabble would dare lay hands upon a City Guard. He stormed from the room to seek out the Mayor of the City, taking some of the Guards with him. Those who remained tried to comfort Jacob as best they could, but he would not be comforted. 

It was dark when Simon came back to the Guard-house to find Jacob sleeping fitfully, his head upon the table where he and James had long sat side by side, doing the work of the Guard. Simon was loth to wake the Wizard, for he bore no glad tidings, but he knew Jacob would not forgive him if he did not. 

"I have seen the Mayor," Simon said wearily, "but he fears the power of the merchants and the Wizards combined, and claims he can do nothing. The Commander of the Guard fears to act lest all the Guard be tainted with the suspicion of sorcery, though he upbraids the Mayor at his willingness to give up his authority to a mob upon the streets. I even went to the King's garrison, but the King is off with his army warring in the East, and will not be back in time." 

"In time for what?" Jacob asked, fearful as he had not been when his own death stared at him out of Alexandra's eyes. 

Simon bowed his head. "The Wizards have agreed with the merchants that the silver torc is the source of James' power. They have tried to remove it, but none can." 

Jacob saw the pain in the Captain's dark eyes. "Simon, you have not told me all." 

"The merchants have said the torc will come off easily enough when his head does. Not all are willing to go so far, but I fear they will give in at last." 

Jacobs squeezed his eyes shut. He had wondered once what kind of life a man would have who never found his heart's desire. Now he knew that even worse was to find his heart's desire and lose it. He could not bear such a life. 

Simon reached out his hand to touch the young man's shoulder. "Commander or no, the men and women of the Guard are wroth at what has been done. James is being held in the cellars of the Guildhall, and if we storm it with all our strength, I do not think it will hold against us." 

The Wizard opened his eyes and shook his head. "And how many would die in the storming?" Jacob asked. "James would rather die himself than buy his life with the bodies of his friends. You know that to be true." 

Simon groaned in agony. "He would not welcome it, I know, but that may not stop them. And what else can we do?" 

Jacob rose to his feet, resolute. "You have done all you can, and I thank you for it. I think this is my task now. If all think his power lies in the torc, they will release him if he no longer wears it. There must be a way. I must find a way." He made for the door, taking an old cloak of James' from a peg upon the wall, for he had none of his own with him. 

"Where do you go?" Simon asked. "The streets are not safe tonight for any who have been seen with James." 

"I go to the School of Wizards, to study the scrolls again. There must be something I have missed." 

"Are you mad?" Simon shouted. "That is less safe for you now than the streets, unless you wish to die as a Sorcerer also." 

Jacob untied the linen from his waist and bound it across his brows, then pulled the cloak's hood over his face. "I know many ways into the School of Wizards and out again, ways known neither to the Masters nor the doorward. And if I did not, it would matter little, for I cannot let James die. I would surely follow him to the Land Beyond Death, and this time there would be no returning." 

Simon was silent, for he knew the truth of those words. As the young Wizard slipped out the door, wrapped in the cloak of his heart's desire, he wondered if he would see either of his friends in the Land of Life again. 

Jacob slipped through the streets, making his way to the School through small dark streets away from the light of torches. The cloak that came only to the Guard's calves came almost to his ankles, and the hood was pulled low, shadowing his face. So he slipped from doorway to doorway and street to street, another shadow among many. He had lived in the School of Wizards longer than most, for he was younger when he came than most Apprentices. Young, but no stranger to the pleasures of the body, and he chafed at spending each night in the same small bed within the same stone walls. The hidden ways that had once served youthful lust now served a man's desperate need, and he reached his small chamber without being seen. 

He labored throughout the night by the light of a single candle, wary of discovery. He pored over scrolls whose writing was so faded that reading them pained his eyes; he coughed at the dust that filled the air, released from the brittle pages of books so old they were forgotten by all but him. He read until his head ached even more than his eyes, and the dust brought tears to spill upon his cheeks. But perhaps it was more than dust, for he knew dawn must come soon, and try as he might, he could find no way to break the power of that silver torc with its jewel of ice. Though it had not strangled James as he once had feared, it might now bring his death all the same. 

Jacob leaned his elbows on the battered table and his head sank upon his hands. A cruel fate indeed, to know your heart's desire, and your destiny, and see all hope of fulfilling that destiny fall before a headsman's axe. He could not bear the thought of a world without the tall Guard walking in it, and he would rather see his heart turn to another than lose him to death. But lose him he would, for Jacob had pored through every book and scroll he knew, and searched his mind for all that he had learned through almost thirty winters of traveling in the wide world and studying in these stone walls, and nothing told him how to release James from the torc that held him in thrall. 

_Listen, then, to the whispers of your heart_. 

Jacob lifted his head and searched the room with his eyes, but he knew he was alone. He knew not from whence the voice came, but its soft tones seemed somehow familiar, and he was not afraid. He sat back upon his chair, and closed his eyes again, and thought of James as he had first seen him in the Houses of Healing. The taciturn Guard was not an easy man to love, with a lifetime of betrayals festering within his imprisoned heart. But Jacob thought now that he had loved him nonetheless from that first day. He thought of the look upon the sculpted face as his own little bottle of oil brought him surcease at last from his terrible pain. The pain in that beautiful body was nothing to the pain James carried in his heart, but Jacob knew that he could heal that too in time, if he could but set his heart free from its prison. 

Full of the joy of finding true earth-magic at last, he had given little thought that day to the torc. It was but a curiosity, a puzzle to be solved someday. He thought how he had first seen it, glinting in the sunlight, with its ice-clear jewel and its hard carven runes all around... 

Jacob's eyes snapped open, and he trembled. He knew. He knew at last how to break the power of the torc, and he knew the cost. He stood and looked around his chamber at the books and scrolls and boxes of herbs and bottles of oil. He took the scrap of linen from the chair where he had flung it the night before and bound it around his waist. Flinging the cloak around his shoulders, he took one last look at the stone walls that had been his small domain almost half his life, then strode out of the chamber and up the stairs. 

The Masters and students alike were amazed, for none knew how the Wizard friend of the notorious Sorcerer had come within their walls. But none put out a hand to stop him, for the look of great purpose upon his face would brook no denial. Many of the Master Wizards had to look away, for the silver star that blazed upon his brow was of a brilliance none had ever seen, and it hurt their eyes to look upon it long. 

Though none would stop him, they followed as he strode swiftly through the streets to the Guildhall. The sun was rising, and its slanting rays drew fire from the silver hoops through his ear and the silver ring upon his hand. The crowd swelled as more joined it, curious at what might befall, hoping to see some marvel. The Wizard's name was passed from one to another in the crowd as it grew, but still none tried to stop him. 

They reached the steps of the Guildhall, where an even larger crowd had gathered, as the City Guards rode up upon their horses, ready to do battle if needs be. They marveled as much as the others to see Jacob stride up the stone steps, fearless and determined, until the merchant barred his way with a sword. 

"None may enter here, certes no friend of Sorcerers." 

"I am no friend of Sorcerers, for the man you hold is no Sorcerer. You have claimed that all his power is in the torc, he wears, have you not?" For though he was not a large man, Jacob had a compelling voice, and it carried to the far edges of the crowd. 

"I have," the merchant agreed, "and this Wizard says the same." 

"And you have said that if the torc could be taken from his neck his power would be broken, and no threat to anyone?" 

"I have," the merchant snarled, "but the greatest Wizards of the City have tried to no avail. So we have another way." And he pointed to a huge man with a black hood and a great axe who stood in the doorway of the Guildhall. 

"I have not yet tried," Jacob said. "I can break the power of the torc." 

The merchant and the Wizard laughed as one. "You, stripling?" The merchant mocked. "You in your ragged clothes, and not even a Master?" The Wizard said nothing, for he could see the blinding light of the silver star upon Jacob's brow. But star or no, he did not believe that any mere Journeyman could do this deed when the greatest of the Masters had failed. 

"Let him try!" Simon shouted with his booming voice. "What do you fear?" 

"Fear?" cackled the stooped old Wizard. "Go, journeyman, try your best. Then you can watch your Sorcerer friend lose his head, knowing you have failed." 

So Jacob went down into the cellars, trailed by a another strapping merchant with a club and the youngest of the Wizards. For none believed that Jacob had the power to do what he claimed, and they suspected some trick. They came to a room at the farthest corner of the deepest cellars, and Jacob turned to the men who followed behind. 

"Would you give me leave to go to him alone? For if I fail, I have things to say to him which are not for the ears of others." 

And the burly young merchant, for all his club and scowling face, was moved to pity at Jacob's words. For he loved a young soldier who shared his stone house by the marketplace. But neither did he want to be the one to let a dangerous sorcerer escape. 

"How do I know you carry no weapon, or picklocks, to free your friend by other means than magick?" 

So Jacob dropped his cloak upon the floor, and took off his boots, and pulled his tunic over his head. And he would have taken off his trews as well, but they were old and thin and worn, and fit him now so closely that any man could see he carried no weapon or picklock or even so much as a penny between them and his skin. So they opened the door with a great key, and let him go in alone, but stood watchful by the door. 

Jacob thought his heart would break to see his heart's desire slumped upon the filthy stone floor, with shackles upon each wrist that were chained to the stone wall. There was little light in the room, for only a small candle burned in the corner. Jacob cast his mind back to the first time he had seen James, by the light of a single candle in the Houses of Healing almost four winters ago. Almost the same scowl was upon his face, though now that face was marred by dirt and bruises and blood that had dripped into one eye from a cut upon his brow. His shirt lay in tatters, his body no less marred than his face. His eyes were closed as he lay against the stone wall, though Jacob knew that James must recognize his scent and the beat of his heart. 

There was a bucket of water, just out of James' reach, which seemed clean at least. His enemies would take his head, it seems, but not poison him. Jacob brought the bucket over and used the rags of the Guard's shirt to clean the blood from his face and the worst of the dirt, for he knew the feel of them must be an agony. Then he made a cup of his hands and brought the water to his friend's lips, and made him drink. 

James opened his eyes then, and turned away at the brightness before him. For the star upon Jacob's brow blazed more brightly to his eyes than to those of the Wizards. 

"Well, you will have your Mastery now, he said in a rough voice. "You have discovered a new kind of magic without doubt, one that turns simple Guards into evil Sorcerers too powerful to live. Your fellow Wizards will thank you." 

Though the words pierced his heart, Jacob knew that they were twisted by the power of the torc, and all kindness ground out of them by the stones that lay in the heart of James. "They do not believe in true earth-magic," Jacob said softly, "and that is what will save you. They think all your power lies in the torc, and if you wear it no longer they will let you go." 

"And how will this save me, Wizard?" Scoffed James. "One Master after another has been here, each with his silver star and black robes with velvet upon the sleeves. The have said spells over me, and chanted, and burned their foul oils and powders until I thought I would die of the smell and the sound instead of the headsman's axe. And still I am not free." 

"I will free you," Jacob whispered, touching his fingers gently upon the face of his heart's desire. 

"You?" Hope warred with scorn in James' weary voice. "You have looked for a way for years, and never found it. Why do you think you can do so now?" 

Jacob took his hand from the face of his beloved and placed it over his own heart. "Because I looked in the right place at last." 

Then he touched the wolf's-head ring upon his finger to the raven-black bracelet upon his wrist. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, though the air in this windowless hole was close and still. Then he looked into the eyes of James, and saw the eyes of the Cat within. And he took his hands and placed them on either side of the torc, and called upon the power of his pure and generous heart. 

At first nothing seemed to happen, and James almost gave way to despair. But then a strange thing befell. The torc, which had lain like ice at his throat for twenty winters, seemed to warm at Jacob's touch. Jacob's eyes were closed now, and his face was still. But James could see the fine sheen of sweat upon his brow, and feel the slightest trembling of his strong hands where they held the torc. Then the silver became warmer still, and felt no longer like hard metal but like a living thing. James suddenly felt a trickle against his breast, and he looked down to the see the ice-clear jewel was gone, flowing like water down his body into the rushes upon the floor. 

Jacob's body began to tremble like a leaf in the lightest of breezes, and James began to fear for him. But his face was as calm as it ever had been. Then suddenly the torc began to glow like the sun, and James had to shut his eyes, lest he be blinded. He felt Jacob's body jerk, and he give a great cry, as a man might whose living heart were being torn from his breast. The torc broke in two, and he felt the halves slither down his body like snakes to lie upon the floor. The shackles grew warm upon his wrists as if melted in the heat of the torc's transformation, and fell upon the ground like rain. 

Then James gasped in wonder, for the shackles were gone from his heart as well, and it was freed from its prison for the first time since he was but a boy. The light was still in his eyes, and he reached blindly for Jacob, fearful that no man could channel such power and live. Jacob fell against him, and James put out his arms to clasp the young man's body. He still breathed, though like a man who had run many miles, and he was warm, and his heart beat stronger than it ever had. Then the light dimmed, and James could see again, and his eyes sought Jacob's face. 

Jacob sat back on his heels, and James took the beloved face between his two hands, and stared in wonder and dismay. For where the great silver star had once blazed, Jacob's brow was clear, and nothing was there but the beauty that had always been. 

"You are a Wizard no longer," James almost sobbed. "You have given all your power to save me, and free me. You have given all..." 

And he stopped, remembering where he had first heard those words from Jacob's lips. 

And Jacob gazed upon the face of James with no regret in his summer-blue eyes, only joy than he had succeeded. "And what have I gained?" he asked in a whisper. 

James touched one finger to the middle of Jacob's brow, tears pooling in his eyes. "You have gained all the love of my heart, for all the days of my life. In truth, I think it has been yours for a long time, but only now can I tell you." 

Then Jacob smiled, and the light of love upon his face was brighter than any silver star. "Then I have gained all." 

Then James took Jacob in his arms and held him to his breast, and the tears from his eyes fell into the wild chestnut hair. And Jacob kissed the spot on James' throat where the cold jewel had once rested, and warmed it with his lips, and then kissed his mouth. And James kissed him back with a greater joy than he had ever known, and they held each other a long time, there in the farthest corner of the deepest cellars of the Guildhall, and knew not where they were, nor cared. 

The pounding of the merchant's club upon the thick door brought them back to the world again. Jacob got to his feet, and pulled the door open. The burly merchant and the youngest of the Wizards stared in wonder at James with no torc upon his neck nor shackles upon his wrists. They started when Jacob asked for his clothes, and watched like dumb beasts as he put the boots back upon his feet and the tunic over his head. Although he no longer had the right to the blue tunic of a journeyman Wizard, Jacob had no other. Then he reached out his hands to James and helped him to stand, and put the cloak around his shoulders. Still staring at James, neither the merchant nor the Wizard saw Jacob bend to pick up something from the straw of the floor and put it in his pocket. They stood to one side as Jacob walked out the door with James leaning heavily upon him. Only when Jacob and James were halfway to the stairs did they shake themselves out of their stupor and run after. 

When Jacob and James came from the doorway of the Guildhall into the light of day, many cried out to see the man whom they feared as a Sorcerer walking before them. Then Jacob pushed the cloak from the Guard's shoulders, and a murmur swept through the crowd as they saw he bore the torc no longer. Then all the Guards gave a great shout, and pushed through the throng on their great horses, and Megan rode hers up the very steps of the Guildhall, laughing with joy. And Jacob helped James to the saddle behind her, and pulled himself up behind Simon, and they rode away. And the merchants grumbled, but they could do nothing, trapped as they were in the net of their own words. And the Wizards were astonished, for they knew not how Jacob had done what all their spells could not. But the village witches and the old wives soon heard the tale and nodded, and were not amazed. For they remembered what the great Mages had forgotten--that the greatest magic was that given freely with a pure heart. 

So Jacob and James were borne in triumph by the Guards to the cottage by the sea, for James would not go to the Houses of Healing, and Jacob said he could do all that was needful. So with many embraces and much laughter the Guards rode away to celebrate at the nearest alehouse. 

Jacob built a great fire upon the hearth, and bathed James, and tended to his wounds, and fed them both. Then he drew from his pocket the two bright coils that he taken from the floor of James' prison, and the Guard knew they were the torc transformed. They were arm-rings, and not cold silver but warm gold. They bore no hard carven runes, but a sinuous tracery of lines. The larger limned the figure of a wolf, and the smaller that of a great cat. And Jacob held them both before him in his hands. Then James took the smaller and clasped it around the arm of his beloved, and Jacob did the same with the larger. And thus was their pledge to each other sealed, and made manifest to all the world. 

Then James went to bank the fire, and held out his hand, and both climbed the stairs to the bedchamber above. Jacob knew that their joining would be as beautiful a thing as the light that had brought him back from the Land Beyond Death, and so it proved; and he found the sweetest sleep he had ever known that night in the arms of his heart's desire. Warmth seeped into his bones, his flesh, his heart. He could feel James' breath in his hair, and the treasured heart beating against his back. And he knew the peace of a man who has endured great trials to find at last his destiny, and his heart's desire. 

And the young man with the summer-blue eyes and wild chestnut hair, and the tall Guard who no longer felt the weight of invisible armor, lived happily (if not quietly) ever after. And if simple folk tell by their firesides how James and Jacob walked the streets of Riverfall and the wide world, and met many adventures; and if they say that young Jacob found a way to be Wizard and warrior both--well, that is a tale for another day. 

* * *

End The Silver Torc by Corbeau: Corbeau47@aol.com

Author and story notes above.

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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